


You're Gonna Get Sick, You Don't Know When

by F1nch



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Arguing, Blood, Brainwashing, Building Collapse, Claustrophobia, Gen, Intoxication, Kidnapping, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Surgery, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28015884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/F1nch/pseuds/F1nch
Summary: Dr. Takeshi Shirogane didn't believe in aliens, and he wasn't about to let some mad scientist and a mystery signal from space change that. But when first contact turns dangerous, Shiro is left with mysterious powers, four teenagers in his care, and a missing best friend. When Pidge is captured, he cannot help but blame himself, but he knows that he must work past his own fears to save the kid he now calls his own. Meanwhile, Pidge finds themself in the captivity of a woman who can only be described as a mad scientist. Even worse, her intentions for Pidge aren't exactly benign.
Relationships: Sam Holt & Shiro
Comments: 6
Kudos: 3
Collections: Pidge Angst Bang





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written in collaboration with blue_girl_artist and nicsartgarden on Instagram, who made some fantastic art that you can find [here](https://nic-nic-nic.tumblr.com/post/637243834394361856/f1nch-archive-of-our-own). Special thanks to Sillygurl1021 on Tumblr as well as Rosie and xxreyxx on Discord for betaing!

Finally, the road below the SUV’s tires shifted from gravel to pavement. The engine stopped groaning in reply. 

Dr. Takashi Shirogane watched out the window as the last fields of corn and cattle disappeared over the horizon. The country was behind them, now, along with its dusty roads and low-flying crop dusters. It wouldn’t be long before they’d be caught in an endless web of suburban sprawl, whose reign of townhomes would only end by dumping them into the heart of urban chaos

At least the closer they got to the conference, the closer they were to getting home.  Three days. He could do three days. 

“Shiro? You asleep?” 

He turned back around, only just noting that someone had been tapping him on the shoulder. 

Dr. Sam Holt fit the world’s view of PhD holders far more than Shiro himself did. He wasn’t exactly middle-aged, not yet, but he was getting there, and the receding line of his hair showed it. Still, his brown eyes were light and friendly, with his hair of the same color reaching all the way to the back of his neck. Thin wireframe glasses were pushed up the bridge of his nose, in such a way that they moved up when his face scrunched up in a smile.

“Not asleep,” Shiro replied, though he couldn’t hide the way that he rubbed his eyes. “Just dozing.”

“What’s the difference?” Sam turned back to the road, though there wasn’t much to see.

“You got me there.”

Holt smiled, in that way that made his eyes smile, too. 

“Well, good morning. We’re about two hours out, now.”

“Better than ten.”

“Better than ten.”

“You wanna switch drivers?”

“Nah. Not if you’re gonna fall asleep at the wheel,” Sam joked.

“Alright, if you say so.” Shiro fully sat up, stretching as much as he could in the confined space.

“Ready for the worst long weekend of your life?”

“It’s not  _ that _ bad. I just don’t like conferences. Feels like I’d be getting a lot more done back at the lab.”

Shiro turned his gaze to the rear-view mirror, remembering that he and Sam weren’t the only ones in the vehicle. 

In the back, Sam’s child looked to have almost dozed off, though Shiro had found that he could never tell what kids were thinking at any given time. They were a bit of an enigma to him. The kid was only fifteen, but they were already the spitting image of their father -- nerdy glasses and all. They appeared to be rather fixated on something on their laptop, and despite their lack of headphones, they seemed utterly uninterested in anything he or Sam were saying.

Sam had assured Shiro many times that Pidge didn’t dislike him or anything. The kid was just like that -- always a little bit distant, always more tuned into the digital world than anything happening directly around them.

Better not to disturb them, then, Shiro decided.

“How’re they doin’?” Sam questioned. “Hey, honey, you doing okay? You need a water or something?”

“I’m good,” Pidge replied with the most uninterested tone a human being could possibly produce.

“I thought you liked the conference,” Sam said, turning the conversation back to Shiro.

“Liked, yeah, in the past tense. I just don’t think that a conference of astrophysicists should be so focused on something so… arbitrary.”

“It’s not like  _ every _ talk is going to be about the signal.”

“That’s true. Ours won't be.”

“Oh, come on, Shiro. There’s some other skeptics out there. Besides, aren’t you at least the tiniest bit interested in the, y’know, alien broadcasting signal?”

“It’s not alien.” Shiro’s tone turned harsh with seemingly no warning. “We just don’t know what it is.”

“Isn’t that the definition of alien?”

“No! It’s not aliens, okay? Things in space just emit signals! We’ve known this for  _ years _ . So why won’t everyone just be quiet about it?”

Even Pidge looked up at that.

“I’m… sorry for bringing it up.”

“Did Dr. Shirogane get abducted by aliens?” A voice came from the backseat.

“No.” Shiro muttered. “It’s just… I guess I don’t personally have any issue with the theory of extraterrestrial life. I don’t believe in it, obviously. It’s just a matter of my work being reduced to looking for aliens. Astrological mapping is a lot more than that.”

“Yeah, I get that. It sure does sound more exciting though, yeah?” Sam replied.

“It’s not about excitement, though. It’s about the truth of the matter.”

“I guess. You’re a bit of a hardass, you know that?”

“That’s why you hired me.”

“Can’t argue with that.” Sam shrugged. “Just three days, then Dr. Shiro can go back to his mysterious laboratory.”

Even Shiro laughed a bit at that one.

Sam was right. It was a three day conference; the same one he had gone to for the last five years. Three days of talks and lectures. Three days of drinking with people he didn’t actually like.

3 days. 72 hours.

He could do that. 

* * *

The conference hall felt far too crowded to breathe, and Shiro wasn’t quite sure exactly how he was successfully competing for oxygen with this mass of bodies. However, he was maintaining his consciousness, so he supposed he was succeeding.

From the corner of his eye, he spotted an open seat, moved toward it, pushing through other bodies in the process. Eventually, he managed to sit down, though it was only after a long series of sorries and excuse me’s as he squirmed his way through the crowd.

Around him, everyone else seemed to be finding their own seats as well. He scanned the area for Sam, but couldn’t spot him among the countless others.

Shiro had told himself, reassured himself, even, that he wouldn’t be attending this talk. There were plenty of others that he was far more interested in seeing. He had no interest in hearing some woman ramble on about pseudoscience.

However, in the end, his fear of missing out had won over. The keynote of the conference’s first day wasn’t something he could easily pass over, and upon his return from the event, he didn’t think he would be able to admit to his assistants that he had simply not attended the talk they had all so much wished to hear. 

That didn’t mean he  _ wanted _ to be there, of course.

At the back of the hall, the last attendants found their seats, and the surrounding chatter slowly grew to a quieter, more manageable volume. Shiro couldn’t see the stage too well, but he could only assume that the speaker had just stepped out. On the wall behind the stage, a screen sprung to life, showing a camera feed of the stage itself.

Shiro had spoken to Dr. Honerva before, a few times. She wasn’t a woman he particularly enjoyed conversation with, but she was a scientist of his same field and station, thus they often ran across each other. 

She was a soft-faced woman, of sepia skin and grey hair (which Shiro was never sure as to the original color of). On the screen, she was dressed for the eye of the public, wearing a labcoat over brown khakis. When she stepped to the front of the stage, the sheer excitement on her face was clear, as if she were not about to speak, alone, to a crowd of hundreds.

She brought the microphone to her face, which was brightly lit by a smile.

“First of all, I would like to welcome everyone here!” she spoke, her bubbly tone coming through in her voice which echoed throughout the hall. “Welcome to the The 13th Annual Washington National Astrological Sciences Conference! I cannot overstate how lucky I am to be able to speak here today.”

Her smile beamed over the hall. She was hardly lucky -- she had kicked off the conference for the last seven years.

She cleared her throat, indicating a change in both subject and formality.

“I’m sure that many of you, especially those of you more involved in the astrological science community, are well aware of the recent radiological signals that my laboratory has been reporting on for quite some time, now. However, please bear with me for a moment. I would like to be certain that we are all on the same page in regards to this topic.

To start with, the Rocky Mountains Aerological and Astrological Research Center has the second highest altitude out of any functional astrological observatory in America. Additionally, our equipment includes radio receptors designed to detect long-range signal arrays. Much of our research focuses around the radio and radiation waves emitted by various deep space objects and materials. We keep a constant recording of all said waves.

Thus, our instruments did not find it hard to detect an obvious deviation from the norm, beginning perhaps a month ago. This disturbance is thought to have originated in or near Jupiter’s outer radiation belt.”

Behind Dr. Honerva, the screen shifted briefly, showing a graphic of Jupiter, and a red mark, not far from the planet’s surface. She moved so that the graphic could be seen, before returning to her spot in the center of the stage. The way she moved gave her an odd sort of authority, especially since she had no idea what she was talking about, as far as Shiro could tell.

“This is the signal that my team and I have been studying for the last three weeks, and it is the closest we, as humans, have ever been to coming into direct contact with extraterrestrial life.”

The crowd bubbled with a low boil of murmurs at that statement.

“From what my team has been able to gather, the signal repeats itself consistently, every four minutes or so. It seems to be a prerecorded patternmessage, broadcasting itself from a fixed point in space. A message, some might say.

A message from something we have not yet met. A message from something that we will hopefully come into contact with very soon.

Listen to them! Hear their voices.”

From the speakers in the concert hall, what was apparently a voice of some sort began projecting. It wasn’t quite a voice, not in the way that humans would usually define it. It sounded more like a whine -- one continuous whirr of noise. Despite this quality, it was undeniably organic. 

It made Shiro shiver.

“As of now, we have been unable to decode this message or its intent. As we continued working on this, however, we created our own message, which will be broadcasted to the approximate spatial location of the signal being broadcast to us.”

Again, a voice spoke from the speakers. It was human, distinctly, but it spoke in such an even, measured way that it nearly sounded robotic. 

“This message is being broadcasted from Earth. Hello. We welcome you. Please respond.”

After the message was finished, it repeated itself, each time in a different language. The whole thing was funny, almost. As if hypothetical alien creatures would understand Japanese better than they understood French. Still, the message repeated.

It came to sound like a mantra. A mantra of childishness.

Finally, the voice stopped. The conference hall seemed to take a breath, as if it were a living thing on its own accord. 

Then, it cheered. The whole hall cheered, in a way that almost seemed crazed. It was the kind of excitement that only built on itself, unable to be calmed, like an animal fury. Shiro felt that, if he didn’t physically stop himself, he would join the rage, join the screeching, find himself wrapped up in excitement and baseless hope. The noise drew him closer to such a fate -- a fate of mindless energy. That awful noise only stopped when Dr. Honerva brought the microphone back to her mouth.

Shiro didn’t think he could listen anymore. He stood, intending to go back to his hotel room.

He needed a drink.

* * *

“You aren’t going to go to the bar?” 

Shiro nearly startled at Sam’s voice, which he hadn’t been expecting at all. He had been crouching down by his hotel room’s minibar, trying his best to read the various bottles inside, and, for the most part, failing. He hadn’t thought to bring along his readers.

He stood and turned to Sam, who was standing in the doorway looking as much his bright self as ever. Shiro couldn’t say the same about himself, not by any stretch of the imagination. The first day of the conference hadn’t exactly been rough, per se. It had been a conference, as average as any other conference could be. But he was exhausted from holding his tongue on the topic of Honerva’s speech for the entire day.

Maybe he should’ve gone to the bar, taking out his anger on some drunken argument that neither he nor his opponent would remember the next day. By the end of the day, though, when the last talk concluded with great fanfare, he couldn’t even conceive of doing anything except collapsing onto his hotel bed. He couldn’t be more grateful that the conference had booked the hotel directly across the street.

“Too tired.” Shiro rubbed his eyes as he looked at his unexpected visitor.

Though, he supposed Sam’s appearance wasn’t too unexpected. The two of them had exchanged spare hotel keycards as soon as they’d gotten them -- as a safety measure, of course. If one of them locked the card in their room, the other would have it. 

“You sure look it.” Sam smirked as he walked into the room, closing the door behind himself. 

“Are you not going either?”

“I was going to.” He shrugged. His brown hair was tousled, in a way that looked too perfect to be accidental. “But I haven’t seen you all day. And you walked out this morning. Just had me a bit worried.”

“I’ll be alright. Honerva was just sounding a bit… fanatical, y’know?”

“Eh, you know that she gets excited about her work. In two days, you two will be halfway across the country from each other.”

Shiro smiled. “I’ll be glad of it. Really, though, you don’t have to worry. The hotel has a bar, just downstairs.”

“I gotta be honest, Shiro. I’d much rather drink with you than with Honerva.”

“You sure?”

“Otherwise, would I have brought this?” From his coat pocket, Sam wrestled a bottle. “What do you say? I don’t want to keep you up if you’d rather sleep.”

“I need wine more than I need sleep right about now,” Shiro said. 

“Me too.”

Sam moved over to where Shiro was, and the two dragged a small table away from the wall. It was clearly intended as more of a desk, but they sat on either side of it, anyway. Sam poured them each a drink.

“So…” Shiro took far too big of a sip, and spoke to try to keep himself from coughing. “How are you feeling about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?”

“Our talk. Please don’t tell me you forgot, ‘cause it’s all I’ve been thinking about like, all week.”

“No, I didn’t forget. No way I could have forgotten.”

“So, how are you feeling about it?”

“Not too bad, actually.”

“I thought you hated public speaking.”

“Oh, I do. But it’s not the same. You’re going to be up there with me. Besides, we know most of those people.” Sam’s smile never once left his face. He took a sip of his drink. “I’m guessing you aren’t feeling quite as good about it?”

“You could say that.”

“Nerves?”

“Probably. I mean, I know what I’m talking about. I invented it, I understand it. But… It’s like showing the world your heart and soul, y’know? What if they hate it?”

“They listened to Honerva,” Sam said with a smirk, before holding out his glass. “To calm?”

Shiro nodded. “To calm.” He clinked his glass against Sam’s.

They spent the rest of the night alternating between pouring over notes for their talk and speaking in increasingly slurred voices. For most of the time, Shiro could hardly focus on the notes, or on the conversation. His gaze stayed on Sam. On his eyes. Had they always been like that? That warm? That bright?

When Sam stood up to leave, Shiro had hardly noticed that any time had passed at all. The bottle had been emptied between them, and neither were on steady feet anymore.

“Sam?” Shiro muttered as his friend stood.

“Yeah?”

“You don’t… you don’t have to leave.”

“It’s late. It’s past midnight.”

“I know. It’s… It’s good. I can sleep on the couch, you take the bed.”

“I can’t.” Sam shook his head. “I gotta… I gotta go be with Pidge. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.” Shiro frowned. “See ya.”

Sam muttered something in reply, but Shiro didn’t quite catch it. The door closed behind him, an, after that, as far as the world could tell, there was no longer a Samuel Holt.

* * *

Shiro started by calling him.

Of course, at that point, he hadn’t understood the situation. He had just woken after having spent the night asleep at his desk. A hangover pounded at the base of his skull, but his brain had been, luckily, still functioning well enough to remember the talk.

So, he had called. His fingers struggled to remember how to move as he brushed them over his phone screen.

He had called. Sam hadn’t answered.

Shiro had been somewhat concerned at that point, but not much. Sam had never done well with alcohol. Maybe he was just sleeping in.

The talk was in five hours. There was time to sleep in.

Shiro ate breakfast alone -- it was provided by the hotel -- and attended the first talk of the day. Sam wasn’t there.

Three hours until the talk.

Shiro resolved that he would check up on him, to see if he had woken up yet. His knocking went unanswered, and, eventually, he had given up and used his keycard to get in.

The only thing that had greeted him on the other side was Pidge, holding a lamp as some odd sort of makeshift weapon. Upon seeing Shiro, they had put it down and explained that Sam hadn’t returned the prior night.

“I assumed he was with you, lovebird.”

Shiro called again. No reply.

He asked Sam’s drinking buddies, but none of them had seen him. Seemingly, Shiro was the only one who had seen Sam since yesterday evening.

Security was next.

The front desk confirmed what Shiro already knew -- Sam hadn’t checked out, and his car was still in the lot. The night receptionist had seen some of the conference attendees pass through, but not Sam.

Finally, Shiro talked his way into the security room behind the desk, where he and the guard scrolled through last night’s footage. It was only then that the story came together.

It had to be stitched together from various cameras, but it couldn’t have been clearer. 

At 1:32am, Dr. Samuel Holt had exited Shiro’s hotel room and began toward his own room. During his route, however, he had crossed paths with Dr. Honerva, and the two had spoken for a moment. 

Both seemed cheerful, though Sam was clearly stumbling.

Their conversation couldn’t be heard, but somehow, Sam ended up drawn away from his path. Together, the two left the building through a back exit.

And that was it.

The hotel lacked external security cameras. 

It was like the quantum particles Shiro spent so much of his life studying. In existence one moment, and then gone the next, with no reason behind it. 

Sam was gone. 

In physics, everything functioned in balance. Every action had an equal and opposite reaction. Everything was balanced against something else. Matter and antimatter, existence and the lack of it.

Shiro felt, in that moment, like a particle that had lost its balance. Lost its other -- the very thing it needed to maintain equilibrium. 

* * *

The hotel was older, in a way that reminded Shiro of road trips and motels and family vacations. It wasn’t badly maintained, surely not, but the wallpaper still smelled of old glue and the televisions clearly hadn’t been updated in years.

He couldn’t help but notice the way that the image on the screen glitched and jumped, just the slightest bit. It was something else to focus on, he supposed, other than the actual image and sound that the television displayed and projected.

It didn’t distract him that much, though. 

“This morning, Doctor Samuel Holt was reported as a missing person in the state of Washington,” the news anchor said. It was a smaller, local station -- no one else would cover it.

By ‘morning,’ the news anchor meant about one in the morning, which was when Shiro was finally able to get the police to agree to register Sam as a missing person. He must’ve been at the station for three hours, maybe more.

“He’s an adult. He can make his own decisions,” the police insisted. And, surely he could -- Sam was as capable as any man could possibly be. But he had been inebriated. 

“It’s only been a day.” And how much could happen to someone in a day? A lot.

Eventually, they had conceded. Sam was officially registered as missing. Though, they had staunchly refused to call it a kidnapping.

“Dr. Holt was last seen exiting the King’s Tide Hotel, at around 1am last night. At the time, he was accompanied by another conference speaker, Dr. Honerva. Any information regarding this case should be reported to, uh…”

Someone from offscreen whispered something to the news anchor.

“To the non-emergency public services number.”

Of course. Of course they didn’t consider it an emergency. And, on that note, the news anchor moved on, occupied with something that, to them, was more important than the midnight disappearance of a renowned scientist.

Shiro moved to turn off the television, but when he grabbed for the remote, he found it was not at his side.

“Pidge? Where’s the remote?” he questioned. He tried to keep the exhaustion from his voice, but such a feat was practically impossible with how much it dragged him down. He had hardly slept after spending the day nagging and bothering various members of law enforcement.

Wordlessly, the fifteen-year-old handed him the device, with which he turned off the TV.

Shiro turned toward Pidge, who was sitting on the end of the bed a few feet away from him. He hardly knew the kid, yet he couldn’t help but feel awful for them. They had only been brought on this trip as their father hadn’t wanted to leave them home alone for three days straight. From what Sam had told him, for Pidge, this trip wasn’t supposed to involve much more than sitting on their computer and eating junk food in the hotel room.

Shiro knew that the kid wasn’t, well, a kid. They were fifteen, and they were far smarter than most in their age group. Still, he hadn’t been expecting them to take the news of their father so well.

The kid had had no reaction upon first receiving the news, other than a simple “oh.” Now, they sat on the bed, legs crossed, watching the TV with a blank stare. They didn’t look upset. They didn’t look like they were feeling any emotions at all, really.

“Pidge?”

“Mhm?”

“You doing okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Your dad… I’m sure he’s doing okay.”

“Yep.”

“I’m sure they’ll find him, any day now.”

“Probably.”

“Uh… Do you need anything?”

“You’re sitting on my charger.”

“Oh.”

Shiro stood, and Pidge took their cord wordlessly, plugging it into their computer.

“Uh, well, if you need anything else, I’m just a call away, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

The kid needed some space, he supposed. Later, he would bring them some McDonald’s or something. For now, he had a conference to attend.

* * *

Outside of Shiro and Pidge, it seemed to most that the conference was simply continuing on as usual, only with a few regularly scheduled talks missing. It was almost surreal, in a way. Two members of this group were gone without a trace, and no one else seemed to care.

It was afternoon by the time Shiro had cleaned up and returned to the conference hall. There were only two talks left that day. Originally, there would have been three, but the first was supposed to have been given by Honerva who was, of course, unavailable at the moment, having not been seen since Sam’s last appearance. Thus, the two talks that were scheduled to be after hers had been moved up. 

At that point, Shiro had little to no interest in anything that the speakers had to say. He had had little interest to begin with. Now, with all that had happened, science was far from his first priority -- a statement he never thought he would make. 

He was not attending the talks for any scientific benefit, though they would serve as a non-negligible distraction. He was simply making an appearance on the off-chance that Sam would be there, unharmed and with an interesting story to tell.

It was a possibility. Not a likely possibility, sure, but in the astral sciences, all possibilities had to be considered. 

And so Shiro found himself back in the conference hall, once again shoving through the seemingly endless crowd of bodies. From the mass, a hand reached out, touching him on the shoulder. He turned.

From the group of people, he picked out a face that he recognized, though it was not one he had seen in quite some time. 

Dr. Ulaz was a rather odd-looking man, as far as the scientific community went. He was far older than Shiro, but he didn’t look it. The short, cropped line of white hair running along the center of his scalp didn’t help, either. He was a man that Shiro respected, even more than the rest of his scientific peers. Though Ulaz was somewhat on the eccentric side, mainly when it came to his dress, he was a brilliant man.

“Dr. Shirogane? Is that you?” Ulaz asked. 

“Yeah, it’s me. Uh, we’re kinda holding up traffic here,” he noted, gesturing to the mass of people moving around the two of them. 

“Oh, yes. How about we find ourselves some seats?”

Though he intoned his sentence as a question, Shiro knew well enough that it was not. He followed the older man through the crowd until the two had found a pair of seats. They sat next to each other as the seats around them filled in. With how many talks this conference had, Shiro would’ve thought that there would be a better system for seating, but in a conference where people simply disappeared, he supposed he couldn’t expect too much.

“Dr. Shirogane.” Dr. Ulaz turned to him with an expression that Shiro couldn’t quite decipher. “I heard about Dr. Holt and Dr. Honerva. Is there any news?”

“No, not since last night. And Shiro is just fine, Doctor.”

“Hm? Oh, of course. Well, Shiro, I’ve been hoping to talk to you ever since I heard about Sam. I suppose the police are looking into Honerva as a suspect?”

“I’m not sure what they’re doing, if I’m being quite honest.”

“Eh, what jerks. Well, I just wanted to tell you that I don’t think you should be worried. Dr. Holt and Dr. Honerva, they know each other. They used to work together, y’know?” 

“Really?”

“Mhm. If I had to take a guess, they went off to go do something with that signal.”

“I don’t think Sam really believes in any of that crap, Ulaz.”

“You don’t think so?”

“He doesn’t seem like the type. And I’ve worked with him for quite some time.”

“He must not talk too much about his work, then.” Ulaz smirked. “Dr. Holt believes in all of that. More than Honerva herself, to be frank.”

“Then, you think they ran off for… something to do with aliens?”

“I would say that with certainty.”

“Really, though. Dr. Holt isn’t the type for conspiracy theories.”

“Maybe.” Dr. Ulaz turned back toward the stage. “But that’s not the Dr. Holt I remember.”

This time, Shiro had been able to get a seat close enough that he was able to see the stage itself, rather than just the screen projection of it. If he remembered correctly, this talk would be regarding the hypothetical physical properties of dark matter -- a subject that was very close to Shiro’s own work. It wasn’t a particularly interesting topic to most, but it was one of the main tenants that Shiro had built his own theory of void echolocation upon. Thus, he had at least somewhat of a vested interest in the subject.

The stage’s curtain shifted, and the conference hall began to quiet as the crowd waited for the speaker to walk on stage. It was a new face, if someone who hadn’t attended the conference before.

The curtain shifted again and was pulled back as the speaker walked on stage.

Shiro felt dread rise in his throat.

He remembered, quite clearly, Dr. Honerva’s excitement during the first talk she had given, which had kicked off the conference a mere two days ago. She had looked like a kid in an amusement park, unsure of what to do first, but simply happy to be in such a place.

This time, she looked even more joyful. This time, however, her smile had something acidic to its quality.

A few murmurs floated through the crowd as Dr. Honerva made her way to the front of the stage. She walked with a sickening nonchalance.

She picked up the microphone and raised it to her mouth.

“First of all, I would like to apologize for any confusion regarding scheduling,” she began. The words felt wrong. “Despite confusion, this time slot is still reserved for my speech. After this talk, other lectures will not continue according to schedule.”

Shiro did a sort of double take, making sure he had heard those words correctly. He tensed. The smirk on the woman’s face seemed less to be of joy, now, and more to be of sheer venom.

Still, no one moved. What were they going to do? 

Honerva continued.

“I am aware that my disappearance yesterday was rather unannounced, and for that I too am sorry. However, my disappearance wasn’t without good reason.”

She stopped speaking for a moment as the speakers crackled to life.

“This message is being broadcasted from Galra. Hello. We welcome you. Please respond.”

The voice was broken and cracked -- the words hardly recognizable. It was the same message they had broadcasted from Earth, with only one word changed. 

The voice was not human. Of that, Shiro was quite sure. It was something distinctly  _ off _ that made Shiro feel sick. 

“The first night of the conference, I received this message from the radiation belt of Jupiter. As you can tell, it was broadcasted in somewhat broken English. This message marked the establishment of communication between us and this object, which, as you can tell, has identified itself as Galra.

However, with our clear language difference, there would be an obvious issue of communication. Luckily…”

Again, the speakers came to life. The voice that emitted from them made Shiro’s stomach flip over itself.

“The recording… it was clear enough,” Sam spoke. “I know what they’re saying.”

“You deciphered it?” Honerva’s own voice came from the speakers.

“No. I couldn’t do that, not without any basis. I just… I just know.”

“You just know?”

“Yeah.”

The recording cut off.

“Without this language barrier,” Honerva -- the real Honerva, the one on the stage who had taken Sam -- continued her crazed rant. “Communication has been made far simpler. Broadcasting at the speed of light, we’ve been able to send or receive a message once every forty-five minutes. We have established first contact.”

As she spoke that final sentence, her lower lip seemed to tremble, as if she were experiencing an absolute sort of euphoria. Her smile tore at the sides of her face.

“We have established first contact!” she shouted again, her voice echoing throughout the concert hall. Some of those in attendance cheered, and Shiro nearly felt obligated to do the same. Others muttered in concern. Still, everyone seemed glued to their seats.

The energy in the room swarmed and grew in a way that was nearly palpable. Shiro felt his heart rate blooming and racing in his temples. For a moment, he thought he was able to see something surrounding Honerva, a physical manifestation of her joy and overwhelming awe and fury. 

He could have sworn her eyes were glowing the slightest purple.

“Gra st’kal na gr’istaksi satski!” Dr. Honerva yowled to the sky, stretching her arms out on either side of her. “Na ti bok’stariskim Galra’tsk yap ya!”

In that moment, it seemed that whatever spell had kept the conference in place lost its hold. Panic washed over them like a wave, filling their veins with flooding adrenaline. Shiro stood, as did most others. There was little individual thought in the action -- they moved as a school of fish, a herd of horses, a pack of rabid dogs.

Still, without any clear direction, there was no hope of actually getting anywhere. People shoved against Shiro from all sides. Some faces he recognized; many he did not. 

Dr. Honerva kept screaming.

“Dak st’ish no palin!” 

However, that was not the only foreign noise in the room that won out over the terrified noises of the crowd.

It sounded like the beating rotors of a helicopter, if they were mere inches above the conference hall, though in reality, they sounded like they were beating inside Shiro’s head.

The panic built and boiled and tore over the side of the hypothetical pot. The noise, the panic, and shouting, the rotors, the breathing, the fear. A shove at his side. A push from the other. Someone stepped on his foot. Bile flooded his mouth.

Panic, bile, shouting. Screaming. The rotors.

The pot boiled, until it exploded.

Finally, the crowd seemed to move, but it wasn’t quick enough. 

From above, somewhere on the roof, something slammed into the ceiling. Drywall chunks fell as the ceiling caved in, breaking on the heads of the panicked attendees. The wreckage sent the group into even greater chaos, causing the herd to scatter. Somewhere, someone fell, knocking off a cluster of chairs. Shiro had no idea where Ulaz had gone, but before he had time to search, He was swept up by a small group,desperately searching for a way out of the array of chairs. After what seemed like an eternity, he was freed as they reached an open area and dissipated.

Looking around, Shiro realized he had no idea where he was, or where he was going. All he could do was to keep moving, his breath heaving in his lungs, desperate for cover.

Above, the ceiling was sinking. A rafter fell to the ground mere inches from his foot. 

Every moral bone in his body insisted that he turn around and help the others, but his instincts left no room for argument. Deep down, he knew he had no choice if he wanted to live. If he stopped moving, he would be struck down by rubble. If he went back, his death would be almost certain. He tore into a small offshoot of a hallway, and didn’t think as he dove through the first open door he saw. Beside him, he felt as someone else followed him into the room mere inches away from him. Together, the two collapsed on the floor. As they panted, the sound of footsteps seemed all-consuming. A few others collapsed next to them, before the door was slammed closed, and the room was bathed in merciful darkness.

Shiro’s head was killing him.

He lay on the floor,heaving for breath. He was not a weak man, not by any means, but running for his life was not something he made a habit of doing. Eventually, enough oxygen flowed into his mind that he was, finally, able to control his limbs again.

He dragged himself to his hands and knees, his lungs heavy. He felt as if he fled a hurricane and escaped by mere inches. 

Regaining some of his senses, he squinted in the darkness, trying to get his bearings. All he was getting was the stink of sweat.

“Ow!” A voice cried from somewhere, sending a spike of panic through Shiro’s chest. He had forgotten that anyone else was in here. “You stepped on my foot, jerk!” 

“Sorry, sorry.” A softer voice apologized. “I can’t see…” The speaker stopped to catch his breath. “Can’t see anything.”

Both seemed to be male, the first being quick and sharp, and the second being gentler, more of a whisper.

Even though Shiro couldn’t see anything, he could somewhat sense just how many others were there with him--simply based on the wet heat of the room and the subtle sounds of breathing. There weren’t that many, maybe a handful, and the room didn’t feel crowded in any sense. There was still quite enough room to be comfortable. 

Still, Shiro could help but feel like he wasn’t alone. Well, of course he wasn’t alone. There were other people in there, with him. But there was something  _ else _ . Something that wasn’t breathing, but still made itself as known as it felt to. He couldn’t help but feel like he was being watched.

“Knock it off, you two.” Another voice came, this one laced with a clear accent, though Shiro couldn’t identify it. “Is there a lightswitch anywhere?”

“Here. One sec.” 

Shiro knew that last voice. Sam? No, it couldn’t be.

An electrical buzzing fizzed, and, a moment later, the room was illuminated by a phone flashlight. The light was shone on the floor, but its residual illumination allowed for much more of the room to be seen than before.

Holding the light was not Sam, not the man he had desperately been hoping to see. Instead, it was Pidge.

The two locked eyes for a moment, doing a double take. After their verification, however, the truth was made clear: They were both who the other thought them to be.

Besides them, the room contained three others. Shiro noted that they looked young. Younger than him. 

In the back of the room, a man with wiry black hair was sitting , crouched over. He looked gaunt, if Shiro had to describe him in one word. His skin clung to his cheekbones, giving his face a sharp appearance. He wore a grey hoodie that nearly blended into the blackness around him. He was hugging a laptop against his chest. 

Near him, but somewhat closer to where Shiro himself sat, was a more heavy-set man. He recognized him, perhaps. At least, he had seen him in passing somewhere before. The man was dressed in some sort of polo shirt, which seemed just a bit too big for him. 

Across from the heavy-set man, another sat, leaning against a pile of boxes. He must have fallen at some point in the earlier panic, as a large scrape was clear on his head. He was holding a mop, which even he did not seem to be sure as to the purpose of.

Together, they all caught their breath.

In a sort of confusion, as if they were all coming out of a daze, they looked at the others who now shared their hiding spot. The man with the mop was the first to speak up.Shiro quickly identified him as the man with the accent.

“So… does anyone have literally  _ any _ idea as to what happened out there?”

“Yeah.” The heavy-set man chimed in. “What  _ was  _ that?”

Shiro anxiously realized that they all seemed to be looking at him. He was the oldest. His thinning hair and weathered look made that quite obvious. And, to be fair, he was the only one not wearing some sort of casual wear.

“Uh… I’m not entirely sure, if I’m being honest.” He started. “Dr. Honerva wasn’t supposed to be there. Then, I don’t know. Something started collapsing the roof, so we fled.”

“Collapsing the roof?!” The man with the mop cried out. “Oh god, that’s gonna cost a  _ fortune _ to fix.”

“I think we have bigger problems right about now.” Pidge interjected before turning back to Shiro. “Who… who is Honerva? What did she do?”

“She was the one who took your father.” Shiro admitted with a somber tone and fidgeting hands. “She was… I guess she was always a bit of a fanatic, but there are a lot of fanatics. She wouldn’t stop talking about this  _ signal _ , said it was some kind of first contact situation. Then she disappeared, at the same time as Dr. Holt.”

“And then she came back.” Shiro was interrupted. The black-haired man at the back of the room sat up. He seemed to have gotten banged up in the whole situation, as well. “She wasn’t supposed to be leading that talk and no one stopped her.” The taunt seemed to be directed towards Shiro.

“It was her time slot to begin with.”

“Well, whatever. She started yelling something in Galran. Then the ceiling collapsed.” He ran his hand through his hair and dug out some sort of white substance. Shiro soon realized that it was the powdery residue that drywall left behind, however, the powder was dyed slightly pink. The man was bleeding.

“Galran?” The heavyset man questioned.

“Galran. The alien language?”

Everyone else in the room regarded the man as if he had sprouted a second head-- which, at this point, wouldn’t have been at all surprising.

“Come on, I thought you guys were like space scientists!”

“Astral sciences and UFOlogy are  _ not _ the same thing!” Shiro protested.

Keith looked at him for a moment, before shaking his head in what almost seemed like disappointment.

“The aliens orbiting Jupiter have identified themselves as the Galra. So, we call their language Galran. Got that?”

The others nodded with some hesitation.

“Great, now that that’s out of the way.” The man cleared his throat. “Keith Kogane, paranormal investigator. And you lot?”

“Uh.” The heavy set man shyly raised his hand. “Hunk. Uh, Garrett. Hunk Garrett. I’m… I gotta be honest, I wish I could say I’m someone cool, but I just study engineering at a school like half an hour away. So…”

“Lance.” The man with the mop shrugged. “I just work here. I don’t know what nonsense is going on with the rest of you.”

“You just work here?” Keith repeated in a monotone. 

“Yes! Why else would I be holding a mop!”

“He’s got a point.” Hunk interjected.

“I’m Dr. Shirogane. Most people just call me Shiro, though.” Shiro interrupted them. 

“You gave a talk yesterday, didn’t you?” Hunk asked.

“I was supposed to but my co-presenter disappeared. I was a bit busy with that.”

“And what about you?” Keith gestured to Pidge. “Are you going to say anything?”

“Come on, leave ‘em alone.” Lance protested. “They’re like ten or something.”

“I’m fifteen!” Pidge contradicted. “And my name is Pidge.”

Shiro patted the ground next to himself, and Pidge scurried over to be next to him. He figured that it would be best if they stayed close from now on.

“So.” Hunk broke the brief bout of silence, which Shiro for one had been quite thankful for. His head was still killing him. “Investigator dude. Do you have any idea what happened out there?”

“Well, it seemed like Dr. Honerva was communicating with the Galra. I don’t see why else she would have been speaking in Galran.” Keith explained calmly, as if he didn’t sound like a character straight out of Star Trek at that moment. 

“Wait, wait, wait.” Lance spoke, his voice seeming to echo in the confined space. He sat up, so that he was no longer leaning against the boxes behind him. “Are you saying we just got invaded by aliens?”

Keith shrugged. “In lay terms, yeah.”

“No, no, no.” Shiro shook his head. “It’s not aliens. There are  _ no _ aliens!”

“No aliens?”

It was yet another voice. Shiro turned towards the back of the storage room beyond where Pidge’s phone light reached.

“Someone should have told us. We came all the way here.”

Something appeared from the shroud, leaving Shiro quite unsure as to what was in front of him. He rubbed his eyes but the creature was still there.

It was in the shape of a cat. Maybe? It was in a similar shape. More so, it looked like the shadow of a cat-- It had the same basic features but its proportions were odd and its ears seemed far too long. 

The creature appeared as if the universe hadn’t quite decided whether it should exist or not. It moved rather strangely, like a corrupted video file and the details of its face seemed to appear only in sparing moments. Overall, it gave Shiro the impression of being unfinished. Like an animation that hadn’t quite been completed yet. Only some of its frames were done up in full color. The rest missed color, or details, or lineart altogether. Occasionally, for only split seconds, the creature would disappear completely. 

In the moments where the beast had color to its form, it was bathed in a light blue, which often seeped outside of its proverbial lines. 

“I think it was a joke.” A gruffer, more irritable voice spoke from the shadows, from which its source soon emerged. This creature existed in the same surreal way as the blue one did, but it was colored a dull red. It seemed more lithe with longer legs and snout. 

Shiro was hallucinating. He was certain of it but no matter how many times he rubbed his eyes, the creatures did not disappear. 

The blue cat walked with an almost cartoonish gait, making its way over to Keith. He sniffed him and nudged him with his paw. Despite the direct contact, the paw seemed to go right through Keith, as if it had never existed at all.

“I like this one.” The cat purred. “Looks strong.”   
Keith drew away, offended, or at least he appeared like it.

“Blue, shut up!”

“Oh, come on, killjoy. It’s not like they can hear us yet.”

“Actually-”

The last word came from yet another voice, of which the source leapt into the center of the room. This cat must’ve been at least twice the size of the others, with more pronounced limbs and chest to match. Its black color would have made it imperceptible in the shadow, especially since it seemed to have an even weaker connection with reality than its smaller counterparts.

“They can. So-” In an instant, his tone turned sharp. “Show some respect!”

The red and blue cats jumped and scurried over to where the black cat had now sat down. Next to them, a pair of cats, one green and one yellow, appeared. The yellow one was slightly larger and the green one slightly smaller, making it the smallest of the group. Looking at all of them, glitchy as they were, was enough to give Shiro a headache.

“Lions,” The black cat stood. “You’re dismissed.”

In an instant, the other cats had all glitched out of reality and had not returned. However, the room felt no less empty. 

“I apologize on their behalf.” The black cat began again. It moved around the room with a commanding aura. At its shoulder, it was likely only two and a half feet;about the size of a large dog. “And I am sorry for my disorienting appearance. Your reality has rather elevated Humes level. It’s very difficult for us to project here.” 

The creature sighed and moved towards Shiro. It still stood, more or less, in the center of the room.

“I am sure you are all quite aware of the dire situation you are in, seeing as you come from an advanced species. Can you speak?”

“Yes.” Shiro replied, feeling as if he were obligated.

“Good. As I am sure you all have seen, your world is currently under assault by a species that knows itself as the Galra.”

The cat moved away from Shiro, and began making its way around the center of the room, moving slowly but purposefully, like a shark. 

“What are the defenses of your world? Anything antimatter? Any Hume elevation implements? I can already tell that you don’t have any sort of Humes field.”

The black cat received nothing but blank stares and a raised hand from Hunk.

“Hunk?” Shiro spoke in a questioning tone.   
“Uh… What’s a Hume?”

The black cat turned towards Hunk sharply, making the man jump.

“You don’t know?” It whipped around, it’s tail flying in the air behind it. “How advanced is your species technology? Warp gates?”

Everyone shook their heads.

“Space colonies?”

Another  _ no _ .

“Space  _ travel _ ?”

“Some guy went to the moon once.” Lance spoke nonchalantly. 

The black cat stood still for a moment as if they had broken the creature. It said, curling its tail around itself.

“Uhhh…. Look, I don’t mean to interrupt, but.” Shiro recognized the voice as the blue cat even before the creature appeared before him. “There’s something out there, uh, getting closer?”

“Something?” The black cat looked up. “Well, what is it?”

“I dunno! This reality hates me. I can barely manifest here, much less get visual input like that.”

“Well, does it smell like Galra?”

“A bit. It’s not Galra but it’s touched by them.”

The black cat took a deep breath and stood, turning to its blue counterpart.

“Can you possess?” 

“What?” Pidge cried out. The blue lion flinched back.

“Can you possess?!”

“I think so.” The blue lion nodded.

“It’s almost here, sir.” The red lion spoke before it had so much as appeared.

“If you can possess, do it!”

The blue and red lions nodded in affirmation before disappearing. 

For a few moments, there was nothing. Only silence and confused looks. Had they just had a collective hallucination? Such a thing was impossible in human psychology, sure, but it was one of the least impossible things that Shiro had seen in the last half hour.

Shiro took a breath, before he felt like he had been struck over the head.

Shiro felt like something had slammed into the side of his head and had not stopped shoving. His ears picked up nothing but screeching, shouting, and  _ noise _ . So much noise. None of which he understood. His limbs ignited in pain. They went numb before thawing, feeling as if they had been stuck in ice water. He closed his eyes but in some way, he could still see. He didn’t know what he saw but it made him want to tear his own hair out. Something closed his airway, then shoved what felt like sandpaper down his throat.

Suddenly, it was over.

He once again had control of his body and though his muscles felt strained, he could breathe once more. He noted that he was laying on the floor and struggled to a sitting position.

Something smelled like Galra.

_ What? _

He shook his head but was unable to shake that thought. It wasn’t his. He knew that much. Not that it was something someone else had said. No-- it was someone else’s  _ thought _ and it was in  _ his _ head.

_ You’ll get used to it. Right now, you have more important things to worry about. _ He reassured himself. Except, no, he didn’t. That wasn’t his thought. That wasn’t him.

The scent of Galra was getting closer.

Shiro looked at his surroundings, relieved that he was in that same dark storage room. The others were there as well, though the cats were notably absent. Everyone looked just as shaken as Shiro himself felt, with his tense muscles still trembling.

“Get back.” Shiro barked out. It was his voice, certainly, but it was only partially him speaking. He knew next to nothing about the Galra besides their name but he could sense that they were dangerous. He didn’t know what he would do if any harm came to the others. They were all just kids. He could handle this. He was older,  _ stronger,  _ braver, and  _ a father _ .

The others scurried to the back of the room, some hiding themselves behind boxes and crates. 

Shiro steeled himself and stood before the door. The smell of Galra was so close now that he felt an unbearable sense of assaulting instinct that he couldn’t understand nor describe.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting on the other side. Some kind of Lovecraftian horror? A little grey alien with a laser gun? Something like the cats, maybe? Something that didn’t quite belong in this reality?

The Galra scent stopped outside the door. It would likely be of little use to try to hold it off. The door was only wood-- it wouldn’t be strong enough to hold off much of anything.

The door knob turned. Shiro sucked in a deep breath.

The door opened.

Shiro wasn’t sure who had thought to leap forward-- whether it was him or the other creature in his mind. Either way, he leapt, even before the door was completely open. Only once he landed did he recognize the intruder as Dr. Honerva. 

He whirled around as he tried to orient himself in space. He had intended to leap onto Honerva but she had moved to the side. Still, he had landed easily on his feet.

Dr. Honerva turned to face him as well. A line on her neck-- a slash wound-- steadily dripped torrents of blood to her shoulder.

Shiro heaved for breath and felt as his jaw blade disappeared from his mouth. 

“Shiro!”

From somewhere, that voice called. He looked but could find no source.

“Shiro, get up!”

Dr. Honerva’s mouth formed the words but the voice was not hers.

“Shiro! Shiro!”

Shiro awoke in a sweat.


	2. Chapter Two

Shiro awoke in a sweat, kicking the now-damp blankets off of himself as he struggled to a sitting position. He threw them into a pile on the floor and stood, noting that sun was already pouring through the blinds.

Stumbling on legs that weren’t entirely awake yet, he made his way to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face as he combed his sweaty hair back with his fingers. He couldn’t help but stare at himself in the mirror.

Staring back at him was a man he hardly recognized. He was not Dr. Takeshi Shirogane, the researcher he had been a week ago. His eyes were sharper, coming to points where they didn’t before. And his hair…

He still wasn’t used to it being black.

“Shiro!” The voice-- Keith’s voice-- came again from the other side of his bedroom door. “Are you dead or something?”

“No, I’m okay. I just need a minute.” Shiro replied. That seemed to please Keith. A moment after, Shiro heard footsteps leading away from his door.

Before, his hair had been brown, just like Sam’s. It felt wrong being black. It made him feel that the man before him was not the man he was two weeks ago. Seven days…

Eight, now.

He did his best to comb his hair before changing into fresh clothes. His muscles ached-- he must have been thrashing in his sleep. He usually did with that dream. 

He wished he could stop having it. He didn’t need to be reminded of what had happened when it was already so etched into his mind.

The Black Lion whined withen his mind, guarding the part of his concious where sorrow dwelled. Keeping him from entering it. Shiro grumbled but was glad for it. He didn’t have time to wallow in his own self pity.

He made his bed, threw on a coat, and left his room.

There was no time for self pity. Not while he had four teenagers to take care of.

Shiro made his way to the kitchen, still rubbing sleep from his eyes. The kitchen wasn't really much-- just a small area with a stove, a microwave, and a sink. A table and five chairs were pushed into a corner. Lance and Pidge were sitting at the table, Pidge still looking half-asleep, while Keith leaned against the wall nearby. Hunk, on the other hand, was by the stove seemingly working with three pans at once. It all smelled fantastic and Shiro could hardly stop his mouth from watering.

He waved a silent good morning to the others and sat down next to Pidge. His chair creaked as he sat down.

The apartment was sparse. It hadn’t been intended for five people, especially with the three bedrooms it offered. Still, it was out of the way and it had been easy enough to acquire on short notice. 

Really, Shiro had been expecting the kids to complain more but they’d done no such thing. They had been just as glad as him to have somewhere to lay down. It was better than driving in a mad panic, as far from the conference hall as they possibly could. As far away from Dr. Honerva and the Galra and everything else as they could.

That didn’t mean it hadn’t followed them.

Three days ago when they had finally tried to rest in a motel rather than sleeping in Shiro’s SUV, they had woken up at three in the morning to four men who had broken into their room.

Shiro had yet to tell any of the others that one of their attackers had been Dr. Ulaz.

Since then, they didn’t stop moving till they made it to a tiny place in New York, just outside of the city borders. Shiro had sold the car as quickly as he could and found this place.

So far, they were safe but they’d only been here for two nights. He was exhausted, more than he could possibly describe, but that stupid dream had yet to allow him a good night of sleep.

“Who’s hungry?”

The voice belonged to Hunk, who had quickly become their resident chef ever since he had been able to get his hands on a stove. Shiro looked up to see a handful of plates placed on the table before him. Keith and Hunk both sat down.

Piled on the plates were heaps of bacon, eggs, and more. Shiro wasn’t exactly sure where he had gotten the ingredients for any of it but he had done so somehow and he wasn’t about to question good food.

The plates were steaming hot and Shiro wondered for a moment if Hunk had used oven mitts to carry them-- as he should’ve-- before he remembered that Hunk didn’t seem to be capable of being burned anymore.

“So.” Hunk spoke again with a full of food. He did seem to be uncomfortable with awkward silences. “Uh… anyone get attacked by aliens in the middle of the night?”

This only seemed to elicit a collective groan from the table. 

“They don’t know we’re here.” Shiro replied as he shifted his eggs around with his fork. “At least, I don’t think so.”

“Yeah.” Hunk laughed humorlessly. “Yeah… I think we’re good here.” 

Shiro could tell what the kid was getting at. They had been so focused on finding a place to stay, where they could get a night’s sleep without being attacked by whatever a Galra was, that they hadn’t thought about what they would do after that. Now, no one wanted to ask. No one knew the answer.

Surely, they all had lives they could return to. Keith was some sort of paranormal investigator up in Washington and Lance had been a janitor at the conference hall. Hunk was an engineering student. They could all return home.

But what would follow them?

So far, none of the kids had been willing to ask that question. Besides, it wasn’t like Pidge had somewhere to go. Not really. The kid had no mother and at such a young age, they couldn’t simply return home and be expected to take care of themself. Especially not with the looming threat of the Galra hanging over their heads.

Shiro had a home to return to, he supposed. He had a job and an apartment. In theory, he could go back to all of it. He could return to his lab, working on his void echolocation studies. 

But he wouldn’t. He didn’t know about the others but he wasn’t going back home. Not until Sam was home safe.

And not until these kids were safe.

“Lance, could you-” Keith started. He hadn’t even finished his sentence by the time Lance had snapped his fingers. In an instant, Keith’s food stopped steaming. 

Lance’s powers had been one of the first that they’d figured out once they’d noticed just how cold the SUV seemed to be regardless of how high they turned the heat up. The theory had been confirmed quite a few times. From what they could gather, he could change the temperature of things but only in order to make them colder. 

Keith was the exact opposite Soon after they had figured out Lance’s powers, They found that he could make anything hotter. His less than well thought out experiments had confirmed that, yes, this included lighting things on fire.

He liked that part of his power set. A lot.

In what must’ve been only ten or so minutes, maybe even less, the table was utterly devoid of food even though it had previously contained enough to feed an army. Teenagers were just like that.

They all finished eating but none of them went anywhere. Not even Keith, who always seemed like he was eager to simply be somewhere different than he was at any given time.

Hunk was the first to speak up, as he always was.

“Uh, Boss?” He questioned. “So… what do you want us to do?”

Shiro bit back the urge to ask what in the world they were talking about. He knew exactly what they meant. He was the only adult out of all of them-- he was their guide.He could handle that.

“Recover.” He replied in a firm tone. “Get yourselves ready in case anything happens. Right now, this is our stronghold. We stay here, we take care of our own, got that?”

The agreement was nearly instant but in the end, his words meant nothing. It was what they were all going to do anyways but something about having someone older, someone to look up to around. That gave them hope.

Shiro wasn’t sure what he would do if they lost faith in him... or worse, if they lost him altogether.

They were just kids. They needed their father.

With a few murmurs and the clattering of plates, the table was soon cleared. Keith and Lance said something about training and had soon disappeared from the dining room. Hunk filled the sink with water and left the dishes there but with that, he was gone too.

Leaving just Shiro and Pidge.

When the other teens were around, it was easy to forget just how small Sam’s kid was. Really, they weren’t that much smaller than the others, though they were certainly the smallest. He was sure that it was more of a height thing. . Sam had never been a short man but Shiro had no idea as to Pidge’s mother. 

With the others away, it just being Shiro and Pidge, he couldn’t ignore the fact that Pidge _was_ … tiny. On TV, fifteen year olds were always portrayed as practically being adults already but if Shiro had never met Pidge before, he would have guessed them to possibly be thirteen.

They were too small, too _young_ , to be dealing with this crap.

Pidge looked up at Shiro. He could see where dark rings encircled their eyes, which were made even more apparent when they took off their glasses to clean them on their shirt. They hadn’t been sleeping-- that much was clear. He was about to question them about it but they beat him to the punch.

“Shiro?”

“Hm?”

“I… Uh, I need to show you something, okay?”

“Uh, okay? What is it?”

Pidge stood.

“Just… follow me.”

* * *

The bedrooms in the apartment weren’t much. With only three, Shiro had been worried at first, but the kids didn’t seem to mind all too much.

Shiro had gotten his own room, even though he had insisted that the couch would be just fine, and that all the rooms should go to the kids. The rest, they had worked out through a series of arguments. In the end, Pidge ended up rooming with Lance, and Hunk with Keith. Each room only had one bed, but they made do with floor space and spare mattresses.

In Pidge’s room, it seemed that they had drawn the short straw and was sleeping on the floor, which was where they were now sat. Pidge balanced their laptop on one leg, angling it so that Shiro could see the screen too. It was a wonder that the technology was still functional after everything Washington to here.

“So, Honerva took my dad.” The kid started, their hands gesturing at the screen. . “Officially, she’s been listed as missing, several others at the conference.The police were able to track down some of the original forty missing, but there have been no developments as of late.” Shiro gulped. He should’ve expected this, he supposed. Anyways, no one has seen Honerva, really. Not since her stunt at the conference. But they mustn’t have been looking very hard.”

Pidge opened an image file from their desktop.

Shiros eyes widened as he scanned the document. “Pidge, what-”

“Dr. Honerva’s credit card statement.” They say it so casually it almost puts him at ease. _Almost_. 

“ _How did you get that_ ?”   
“I have friends in high places.” They bit back, almost defensively.

“You hacked a _bank_?”

“To be fair, it wasn’t me. It was some guy in Ukraine who owed me a favor. Anyways,” They tilted the laptop more towards Shiro. “As you can see, Dr. Honerva hasn’t exactly disappeared off the map. And she’s _moving_.”

“Moving?”

“Yeah. Uh… here, here.” They opened a folder, full of more images. They opened one-- some kind of form. “She’s been renting cars all across America. She seems to be moving East, like us, but…”

“But?” He encourages them to continue.

“At every rental place, she does the same thing. She rents out the four biggest cars that the lot has, all under a fake name. Different fake names in every state.”

“Then how can you be sure it's all her?”

“Uhh… a lot of signature analysis, CCTV footage, and time.” They adjust their glasses. ”From what we can tell from the footage, she seems to be travelling with a lot of people. At each rental place, a new face shows up with the Doctor. We’ve been able to count at least seventeen different accomplices in total”

“Wait, okay.” Shiro sighed. “You keep saying we. Who’s we?”

“People. Friends. Please don’t lecture me about online safety, right now.”

“Do they know where we are?”

They give him a look as if to say _I’m not an idiot_. “No. As far as anyone knows, I’m unrelated to the case. It’s not like it wasn’t national news-- there’s lots of people trying to solve it. There’s one other thing, too.”

Another image was pulled up. A purchase agreement for a building.

“This building, this warehouse, it was bought out by one of the same fake identities that Honerva used to rent the cars. As far as anyone can tell, that’s where she’s staying, as of right now. She returned the last of the rental cars not far from this place, and ever since then, there’s been no activity on any of her cards.”

Shiro looked closer at the agreement. “This place is where?”

“About twenty miles from us. It’s in the inner city. We could get there in an hour, at most, depending on how the traffic is. We can be there before noon if we get going fast enough.”

Shiro moved to grab Pidge’s hand away from the laptop, but soon thought better of it. 

“Wait, wait, slow down, Pidge. What are you talking about?”

“I mean, that’s gotta be where she’s keeping my dad, right? We could be there in an hour!” The hope in the kid’s voice was unmistakable. “We have to go and get him, right?”

It would have been Shiro’s first instinct, as well, if he had been on his own. But…

Now he had others he needed to protect, people who were depending on him. Promises he needed to keep. 

“We can’t.”

“What?!” The hurt in their voice stung. 

“Pidge, we can't.” He tried to sound calm. “Dr. Honerva is a dangerous woman. You saw how much chaos she caused, and now with the the Galra on her side, we have no idea what she’s capable of Pidge looked at him. The only way to describe their facial expression was _betrayed_.

“He’s my _dad_!” And your friend! I won’t let her hurt him!”

“I’m sorry. I want him back, too. But I’m not risking anyone else getting hurt.”

“Shiro, please!” Tears were streaming from their eyes, their hands balled up into fists “We need to get him back. This is our chance! Please! Before he gets hurt!”

Shiro felt himself tearing up now, too. He wrapped his arms around the kid, but they pushed him away.

“We can’t risk it.” Shiro shook his head. “We can’t just rush into this.”

“We don’t have time! We don’t know when she’s going to move next!”

“We need to think about this. It’s too dangerous to rush in without more information.” 

“Get out!” Pidge shoved Shiro back, though he hardly felt it. “Leave me alone!”

Shiro wanted nothing more but to stay and work this out, but he could tell that Pidge needed their space. He stood, and headed for the door, before turning back.

“I’m sorry.” He spoke quietly.

“Just save it."

Pidge slammed the door behind him. 


	3. Chapter Three

Keith was never one for the city.

It wasn’t his native territory. He had grown up in the country, on a ranch, where he could go days without seeing another soul besides his father. It had taken him some time getting used to the smaller cities in Washington, but New York City? 

This was a whole other hellscape. 

He kept his shoulders tensed and his bag close to his chest as he maneuvered through the mass of bodies. It reminded him of the conference far more than he was comfortable with. 

Still, with his current living situation, he didn’t have much of a choice. Hunk needed ingredients but the others, including Hunk, were still too afraid to go out into public Dr. Shirogane would have been the best option to do so but people were searching for him.So, the responsibility fell to Keith.

He had made it to the market and was able to get pretty much everything Hunk had asked for. Now, he just had to get back, and get through these streets till he could get to that reeking underground tube that locals called the metro. 

He only had to walk about half a mile, which was nothing. He hoped it to be relatively peaceful. A time to get his thoughts together. That was what he really needed right about now.

That was not the case for Keith though. He supposed that went along with the first rule of mental quantum influencing-- Not wishing at all is better than any wish. He should have known that, damn it. He was a paranormal expert, after all.

He had made a wish. That had been his first mistake.

His second mistake had been looking up when he heard something out of the ordinary. 

Well, it wasn’t like the noise would have been all too easy to ignore. It wasn’t an explosion but it was on par with one when it came to volume. It sounded more like a tin can being crushed, just on a far larger scale.

He could have ran and hide like lemmings along with everyone else. In fact, it’s what he should’ve done. In most situations, running and hiding was the best solution.

But he had spent one moment too long staring at the spaceship that was now parked in the middle of 24th street. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from it. He had seen the same thing in so many pictures after one, nearly identical to it, had landed atop the conference center, just a week ago. But in person, it felt so much more solid. 

It was huge-- the size of four bigger cars, at the very least.

He became acutely aware of the fact that every person that had formerly bumped against him from all sides were now gone. He was the only one in sight. Standing there with his mouth agape.

Keith knew that the logical decision was to run. Of course it was. But the red lion, that voice in his head that granted him power over heat, thought otherwise.

The red lion had no voice. It did not communicate in words, only in a certain blazing will to fight that boiled in Keith’s chest. A warrior’s spirit. So, he stood, waiting for whatever would come out of that ship.

If he wasn’t going to do it, then who would?

He called out to the others-- his friends-- for aid.

* * *

The black lion exchanged no words with Shiro, but its message was clearer than anything. Keith was in danger. That was all that he needed to get him out of his room, pulling on his coat.

One of his kids needed him.

The other three-- _six_ , if he was counting the lions connected to the kids-- were at his side in an instant, though he noticed that Pidge was standing back. They had all heard the same call, and it wasn’t just something that they could ignore. 

Together, they emerged onto the street, which was on the very border of the city. It only occured to Shiro, at that moment, that they had no car. The black lion groaned in his mind-- _this reality and their stupid forms of transportation. Just teleport like everyone else!_

“Uh… Boss?” Hunk questioned.

“I know.” Shiro sighed. “Is there any other way we can get there?”

“No. The metro is blocked.” Pidge replied. The venom in their voice ticked Shiro the wrong way. Now wasn’t the time for grudges. “There’s another way, though.”

“Uh… Pidge, we don’t have the old _el coche_.” Lance pointed out.

“ _We_ don’t have one. Doesn’t mean there aren’t any cars around.”

“Please don’t hijack a car.” Hunk begged, fidgeting.

“It’s for a good cause! And it’ll take like, five seconds.”

Pidge held up a hand, and sparks began flying from their fingertips, in a demonstration of their powers. They hadn’t had much time to test the limits of Pidge’s powers yet, but from what they could tell, they involved taking control of electricity and computers. And, most modern cars did have computers in them.

“It’s illegal!” Hunk protested. Pidge shrugged, looking at Shiro.

“Do it.” He gave in reluctantly. “But don’t damage the car. We’re bringing it right back here, where we found it, once we’re done, okay?”

“Sounds good, _boss_.”

* * *

They didn’t move like humans. That was the first thing Keith noted about the twelve men who clambered out of the spaceship. Sure, they certainly were humans, at least physically,but the way they moved… it made him almost feel sick. It was as if they were robots, controlled by some outside force. Every move they made was jerky, as if the body was protesting but could do nothing about it. It unsettled Keith in a way he couldn’t quite describe.

Around his hands, the air grew hot, only degrees away from sparking and lighting ablaze. He was certain that, had these been ordinary people, he could’ve taken them easily. But if their odd movements were any indicator, they were anything but.

After stumbling around like zombies for a moment, the strangers seemed to get their bearings. Before he could react, twelve pairs of eyes were on Keith.

Maybe he couldn’t take twelve people single-handedly, actually.

* * *

Shiro was going the speed limit. 

He knew that that was likely a stupid thing to be worried about, right about now, the cops surely had bigger problems,but he wasn’t about to be a bad example for the three teenagers who had squeezed themselves into the backseat. 

Regardless of the nagging voice telling him to punch it, Shiro reasoned that, despite going slower than he could, they would still reach Keith promptly.. He could feel the teen’s presence before he could see him.

As they drove into downtown-- which was now eerily abandoned-- it felt that they were driving into a desert. The heat enveloped the car, suffocating and relentless. The air became hard to breath. Behind him, the others let out gasps, clearly feeling the same he was. But all Shiro could think about was Keith. 

Before he knew it, he had slammed down his foot onto the pedal, and the car was screaming through the empty streets. He could feel the heat as it slammed into the windshield, but the consequences were not life threatening, and he could deal with it.

They found Keith's location about twenty minutes after he had called for help. For a moment, Shiro worried that it may be too late, and the thought turned his stomach.

The street was empty, devoid of cars, except for a few that were now completely smashed, and a massive spaceship that cracked the asphalt that it sat upon. Outside the spaceship was a pile of bodies, like something out of a zombie movie, all on top of each other.

Keith, however, was nowhere to be seen, but if the sweltering heat was any indication, he was nearby.

* * *

Keith’s breath was hot against his own face. He wasn’t sure how he was still breathing, with the pile of writhing bodies on top of him, pressing down. They blocked out any semblance of light, leaving him in darkness. 

One struck out at him, but missed. There was no room for either party to attack. Though the air around Keith threatened to burn his skin, none of his attackers seemed concerned.

A spark of hope lit in his chest.

The red lion said nothing to him, as it did not speak in words, but no words were needed, to make their exchange. The other lions were here, and that meant the other paladins.

He could do this.

He strained to breathe as the air around him grew hotter and hotter. It was like turning up the dial on a thermostat, really, but this thermostat had no maximum temperature. The air simply got hotter, and hotter, and hotter-

Until something caught alight.

In a moment, Keith was surrounded in an inferno, which moved as a solid force, pushing his attackers away from him in an explosion of heat and sending them flying. He heard them hit the asphalt, but did not see it, as he had already collapsed onto the concrete himself.

* * *

Shiro narrowly dodged as a body came flying at the windshield from the pile. The body struck with a _thump_ , but it did not seem to mind, as as soon as it had fallen, it was back up onto its feet again. 

Once he could see clearly again, he saw Keith at a distance, laying in the middle of the road, panting for breath. His skin seemed to glow, like the heating implements in the bottom of an oven.

Shiro threw open the car door and practically dove out. The others did the same, behind him with every step. Shiro was at Keith’s side in an instant, though he dared not touch the boy, lest he become as badly burnt as the scorched asphalt around him.

He stood beside him, there, on the floor, as he looked up to scan the situation.

There were at least ten people there, acting very strange, though there could have been more. It was nearly impossible to count, as the ones he did notice were aimlessly moving around.

Shiro knew all of them. Ulaz was among them. He felt sick.

These had been his friends, once. Dr. Honerva had done something to them. He knew that much. He had to help them. But, right now, there was nothing he could do. Right now, these were his enemies, and they needed to be stopped before they could harm anyone else.

“Keith, are you with me?”

“Mhm.” The boy groaned. He shifted on the ground, but such an exertion of his powers seemed to have weakened him quite a bit.

“Can you get up?”

“I-” He strained, and struggled his way to his hands and knees. Steam was fizzing off of his skin, as any sweat evaporated immediately. “I think so, yeah.”

“Okay. Get up, and hide.” Shiro stood up in that moment. 

“Wait-” 

Keith was cut off immediately with a stern tone from Shiro. 

“No, you’re hurt. We can handle this.”

“I can help.” He was slowly moving to stand. 

Shiro knew that nothing he could say right now would convince Keith that he was too exhausted to fight. He needed to try a different approach .

“Actually, yes, you can. We need to make sure that the civilians get to safety, and you’re the fastest out of all of us. Are you okay with that? 

“Yeah.” Keith heaved. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“Good.” Shiro patted the kid once on the back. It was like touching a hot stove. “ Find us when you’re done. I’ll see you in a few, okay?”

Keith nodded and got to his feet. Steam was still coming off of his skin in visible clouds as he left within that moment. Shiro could only hope he found someone who wasn't an enemy. Maybe a kind civilian who could keep him from doing something stupid. But, right now, Shiro had other worries. 

Lance, Pidge, and Hunk had all gone their own way to help. The zombie-like people were slowly noticing that they were there. Shiro could hear the black lion hiss within his mind. These people, people he would’ve called his friends just days ago, reeked of Galra now.

“These are civilians!” Shiro shouted, as loud as he could, ensuring that the others could hear him. Whether or not they would listen was not in his control. “Try not to hurt them, but do what you have to drive them out!”

His voice reached the other paladins, but as a side effect, it, too, made the zombies aware of their presence. They did not hesitate to make their move.

Many started appearing as small groups went hurtling towards each of the paladins. Lance was caught off guard, and Shiro heard as he was thrown to the ground. He tried making his way to help, but found his route cut off by four men.

Three men he did not know, and Dr. Ulaz.

He shook his head. He couldn’t think about that, right now. These weren’t his friends, anymore. They were just people.

He could take them out, surely. After all, he had to have some sort of power now, right?  
At that moment, a thought struck him-- a thought that would’ve been better if it had come to him at literally any other time before their current situation. The others had spent so much time figuring out and experimenting with their powers. Keith wielded fire, Lance wielded ice, Pidge wielded electricity, and Hunk… well, he couldn’t exactly be hurt.

But Shiro? He hadn’t even thought about his own powers. 

He had no time to consider the implications of this, as one of the men charged forward, attempting to throw him into a headlock. He managed to push the man away, but found his arm being grabbed as soon as he did so. 

He heard the black lion yell at him, but he was too panicked to listen.

Someone else grabbed his other arm, and he quickly found himself thrown off balance. Ulaz charged forward, knocking him off his feet. His body slammed onto the concrete below him, and for a moment, his head swam.

_Your arm_! It was the first coherent message that the black lion had sent him. What about his arm? He still couldn’t think straight.

_Your fake arm, you dolt!_

He didn’t understand. Sure, he did have a fake arm. He had only been born with one-- a genetic defect. Sometimes he forgot that one of his arms weren't organic, it was normal to him. 

Ulaz stood atop of Shiro to keep him down as he wrapped his hands around his neck. Shiro noticed sparks beginning to dance around his fingertips.

Shiro panicked, and finally understood what the black lion had been howling about. He bit down on his own tongue as his prosthetic arm began to glow a blazingly bright purple. Pieces shifted and morphed as the arm changed shape, taking on the form of a large hammer.

Just as he had begun to run short of breath from Ulaz hands wrapped around his neck, he lashed out, slamming the blunt weapon into his attacker’s chest, sending him flying with a blinding flash of purple. He managed to hit the other attackers with a few quick swipes of his arm, sending them back a few feet. Shiro quickly stood to his feet, narrowly dodging a tackle by Ulaz.

As Ulaz stumbled from his failed attack, Shiro spun around, gripping him by the wrist in hopes of sending him falling.

He realized he had made a mistake once he felt electricity rush through him. For a moment, he could practically feel his own blood, rushing in his veins. Once again, he had fallen, but this time he managed to brace his arms and catch himself.

Dr. Honerva had done something to Ulaz. Now that he was looking for it, he could see it. Sparks of purple shimmered around Shiro’s fingertips from the overwhelming emotion he was feeling.

_What had she done?!_

He tried not to dwell on the emotion too much… not now. He quickly got to his feet before the other zombies made his way over to him. He couldn’t do this-- they would get to him, eventually. He was already feeling weak on his feet. 

He closed his eyes and with little more than a thought, his prosthetic arm morphed itself into the shape of a long blade. Finally having some sort of control over these newfound powers, he swung the weapon in front of himself in a wide arc, surprising the zombies just enough that he was able to break free of their huddle.

None of the others seemed to be doing that well, either, though he didn’t have time to take note of it. With a flash of worry, he noted that several of the zombies had disappeared. -- Four of the eight were no longer attacking him. 

Shiro distanced himself from Ulaz and the others, giving himself just enough time to cry out:

“Guys, over here!”

His message was replied to instantly. The huddles surrounding the teenagers were broken as the kids fought their ways out. 

An arc of electricity flashed through the air as Pidge struck out one of their attackers, while Lance shot a flying icicle straight towards the zombies, narrowly missing Shiro. Hunk had no offensive powers to speak of, but bulldozing his way through his attackers seemed to work just fine for him.

Within a few moments, the four of them were huddled together as the zombies were inching forward. 

They didn’t move like they had any clear indication as to where their next step would land. If anything, Shiro would describe their movements as purely random. Once they lost immediate sight of a target, they wandered about, until they caught sight of another.

That gave the four of them a few moments to catch their breath, before the zombies honed in on their location

“So is this when we run, or what?” Hunk questioned, his eyes darting from side to side.

“No.” Shiro was surprised by the steady tone of his voice. He supposed that the black lion must’ve had something to do with that. “We stay. We-” He paused, his brain whirring for a brilliant plan. None came, but he did manage to string together a subpar one.“We’re going to herd them back into the ship, and then weld the hatch shut.”

He waited for the others to protest, or suggest something better, but they didn’t. He wasn’t sure it made him feel to have these kids seeming to have complete and utter trust in him. It was heartwarming, sure, and he did love these kids. He had none of his own, not biologically, but he had known this group for less than a week, and he was completely and utterly sure that he would die for any one of them. 

He wanted only the best for them, but he never had been the best at keeping others safe. After Sam-

He shook the thought from his head..

“Lance, you’re with me. Hunk and Pidge, you’re a team. We go left, you go right. Got it?”

They nod. Hunk and Pidge fist bump.

“Good. Let’s go!”

By now, the horde had gathered their thoughts enough to form a massive group and was heading in their direction.With his signal, both teams split off into their assigned directions, surprising the horde, who seemed unable to decide which direction to go. 

The team moved quickly, and with surprising efficiency, given that none of them actually had any history in combat. As soon as they moved into position,Shiro lost sight of Hunk and Pidge, as they were on the other side of the horde, but they could still tell that they were there. Together, with a combination of Shiro swiping with his sword, Lance firing tiny, bullet-like icicles out of his fingers, and whatever Pidge and Hunk were doing, they were able to force the zombies forward, towards the ship. 

By the time they managed to get the horde onto the ramp and into what Shiro assumed to be the ship's cargo hold, they were all soaked in sweat. With one final push, the horde was sent further into the ship. 

It seemed too easy.

Shiro gestured for the others to get back, without so much as looking back at them. He trusted that they would do what he asked. He kept his eyes firmly locked onto the zombies, who were now shifting and whining in the back of the cargo bay. 

He locked eyes with Ulaz, but received not even the smallest sign of recognition from his former friend. His eyes were glazed over, unseeing.

Ignoring the pang in his heart, Shiro turned his attention to the ship’s hatch. It was about the size of a garage door, and several times thicker. Still, he felt no hesitation as he hooked his fingers under the door’s lip and began pushing it upwards. 

It moved with ease, and he added super strength to his list of new found abilities. . Now to find Keith to weld it shut.

Shiro turned back to where the group was standing, a few feet away.

His eyes narrowed as he counted its members

“Hunk, Where’s Pidge?” He questioned, already scanning around the area. Had the kid been hurt? _Damn it, Hunk!_

“Uh.” Hunk ran his hand through his hair. “Yeah, so, they said they were going over to your side to help you guys. And I said okay. And they said ‘okay I’ll see you in a sec’ but I did not see them in a sec.”

“I didn’t see them come over to our side.” Lance shook his head. “Did they get lost?”

Shiro could sense a mounting panic in his throat. He should have been watching the kid, he should have known! He shouldn’t have split them up, he had been so stupid!

“They must have run off.” Shiro spoke firmly. He considered for a moment that Pidge could have gotten herded in among the zombies, but if such a thing had happened, they would have surely said something when the door was closing. And the zombies had been eerily quiet. 

“Okay.” He did his best to sound calm, though it wasn’t the easiest at the moment. “Nobody panic. I’m sure they just wandered off. Lance, Hunk, stay with me, okay? We can’t lose anyone else.”

He took a deep breath and tried to think. This was his fault, he knew that much. He shouldn’t have let Pidge out of his sight. More so, he shouldn’t have yelled at them the other day. His mind weaved through the thousand choices he had made in the past week, admonishing himself for each one. 

The black lion hissed at him, running around in his mind until he paid attention to it. He had no need for its hypocritical wisdom right now, but it did not care what he wanted. It flicked an annoyed ear when he finally turned his attention to it. It had a warning.

Too late, Shiro realized as he looked up, and felt his blood run cold in his veins. He sensed Keith’s terror, via the red lion, and he scanned the area seeing nothing.His confusion didn’t last long, as from a side street, a group of zombies emerged. Though, at first, he could not even tell them to be such. They numbered six, and moved with a purpose and drive that the others didn’t. He was quite sure that he had a guess as to why.

At the front of the procession, Dr. Honerva moved. She looked significantly older, , though it had only been a week since he had last seen her face. Perhaps it was not that she aged but rather she looked twisted, _wrong_. Her eyes were sunken in, in a way that was skeletal Not only that, but there was something different about the eyes themselves. The whites seemed to have almost yellowed, like old paper. Her skin was ghostly, almost translucent, but it was the wound on her neck that drew Shiro's attention. 

The wound he himself had caused. It had healed over, but the scar tissue was colored a bright purple. It did not look infected, not exactly. If anything, the scar looked more as if it had been filled in with rubber.

Something was definitely wrong with her but, at that moment, Shiro couldn't care less about her. All he cared about the teenager that one of her zombies had in a firm headlock.

Keith still looked weathered, having burned up all his strength in the earlier fight. A wound tore across his jaw line, curving all the way up to his forehead. Fresh blood still oozed from it. Like the stubborn kid that he was, he had far from given up, and was still struggling and lashing out against the zombie that forced him down. He was just a kid, and the zombies clearly outmatched him, but he still fought back

Though Shiro could not hear it, he watched as Keith growled something,at the zombie restraining him. As he did, spit and blood dribbled from his mouth. 

Shiro felt his arm already turning into a blade. No one treated his kid like that. On either side of him, Hunk and Lance moved. The two were bristling.

“Stay by me.” Shiro repeated. The other two were clearly ready to charge into a fight, but he knew it wasn’t one they could win. Especially not when the other side had a hostage. He couldn’t bear seeing Keith hurt, especially with his already wounded state.

Dr. Honerva approached. Her teeth were yellowed too, Shiro noted as she got closer. With a wave of her hand, she ordered her procession of zombies to stop in the middle of the street, about ten yards away from Shiro and the others.

His legs shook, and he nearly flinched as a bead of sweat dripped down the back of his neck. He was terrified. Not only for Keith’s life, but for his own,and his teams. He never signed up to be leader, especially not in a life or death situation.

But, he was here now. And he knew he had to step up to the plate. 

“Stay back. Only move in if I give the order.” He could sense Lance’s outrage at his words, but the teen said nothing.

Shiro took a deep breath, and walked up to Dr. Honerva. She smiled, as if they were simply old friends, meeting at a science conference.

“Honerva.” He started. Her smile was starting to unnerve him. “What is this all about?”

She laughed a little, before seemingly remembering how human conversation worked. 

“Just gathering sheep for the flock. I would advise you stay out of my way, _Dr_. Shirogane. 

Shiro bristled, widening his stance. “I’m not going to be able to do that.”

She smirked, as if he had just made a horrible joke and was pitying him. 

“Dr. Shirogane, I consider us friends, and as your friend, I have no desire of bringing any harm to you.” She spreads her arms as if expecting an embrace. “You don’t need to be involved in this, all you have to do is step aside. ”

“Then I would advise that you return my teammate to me.”

“Hm.” She paused, as if actually considering it “No. I don’t think I will. And if you or your pathetic team tries to stop me, I’ll have Dr. Jaydza rip him to shreds. How does that sound??”

The change in her demeanor was unsettling to say the least. One moment reasonable, the next bloodthirsty. Shiro locked eyes with the mad doctor. He did not doubt her threat for a second. Keith was in danger now, but Shiro did nothing, he would only be more at risk?

Behind him, he heard a screech, followed by a flash of green, coming from seemingly nowhere. In a split second and a burst of blinding light, the air took on a distinct stench of ozone.

Dr. Honerva was thrown to the ground.

She and her attacker rolled over each other a few times, before friction stopped them. Only when the air was cleared of sparks did Shiro recognize this mystery attacker as Pidge.

They did not pause to make sure Honerva was down for the count. Shiro had never seen a human move so quickly, but he supposed that he and these kids were no longer entirely of their birth species.

Before the zombie restraining Keith had time to react, Pidge slammed into him full force, knocking him off balance and sending him flat on his back. Keith did not waste the moment of opportunity, and took off, back towards Lance and Hunk. 

Unfortunately, the element of surprise could only persist for so long.

Dr. Honerva was back on her feet in an instant, and before Pidge had so much as the chance to stand, they were toppled over by a pair of zombies from Honerva’s procession. 

The doctor regarded Pidge as if they were a piece of debris blocking her path. She seemed to mutter something to herself, before gesturing to the zombies. They hauled Pidge to their feet, each taking hold of one arm. 

Shiro shivered with fury, but refrained from taking action. He couldn’t provoke Honerva into hurting Pidge. He worried that Pidge themself would do something stupid but, as far as he could tell, they weren’t moving at all. They were awake--their eyes were open, surely they were awake-- but they had simply gone limp.

“So.” Dr. Honerva turned back to Shiro. “Do we have a deal?” She examined her fingernails. “I will admit that the terms are not to my complete liking, but a live hostage is better than a dead hostage.”

Shiro trembled with rage, but he knew had no choice. If he did anything now, Pidge would be dead for sure. With the electrical powers the zombies seemed to possess, he would have no time to make a move. It was either get the kid killed right now, or hope that they could survive wherever they were being taken.

It was the worst choice he had ever made, but there was only one solution. One way to guarantee Pidges survival, at least for a little while.

“Pidge. I’m so sorry.” He spoke, unable to meet their eyes

“Don’t be.” Their voice was hoarse from gasping for breath, but still full of venom.

Shiro slumped his shoulders, as the youngest member of his team was taken from him. 

What made his heart break further was the whole time, Pidge showed no sign of struggle.


	4. Chapter Four

The car was freezing cold. 

Shiro’s eyes stood firmly locked on the road, but he didn’t need to look to know that his arms were covered in goosebumps. 

In the backseat, Lance was yelling. He had been doing so for the last ten minutes-- the whole time that they had been in the vehicle. Shiro heard his words, but his mind simply blocked them out, refusing to process anything other than the road ahead.

He was going the speed limit. That was what he was focusing on, aside from the road itself. He watched the speedometer, making sure that the needle rested firmly on the ‘35’. Everything else was background noise.

The car was getting colder. 

By the time that they had pulled up outside of their apartment building--in the same spot from where they had taken the vehicle in the first place--Shiro was sure that he was on the edge of frostbite. The cold stood, even as Lance threw open his door and ran back into the apartment. More nervously, Hunk walked out, following the blue paladin, who was still spitting with rage.

Shiro turned off the car, though his hands felt numb. Most of his body felt numb, in fact. How many hits had he taken? He had no idea.

The tips of his fingers were blue.

He turned to the passenger’s seat. Keith still looked faint, slumped in the seat in a way that looked distinctly uncomfortable. His own outershirt had been tied around his head, which was now stained deeply with crimson.

Shiro could only hope that the flow had stopped, but he wasn’t confident.

“Keith?” He muttered, placing a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Are you with me?”

“Wh-” Keith muttered, stirring for the first time in the drive. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.”

“We’re hom- we’re back at the apartment.”

“Okay.” 

Shiro nodded, simply glad that Keith was awake and responsive. He got out of the car, half-frozen legs still shaking underneath him, and made his way to the passenger’s side. Keith opened the door on his own, but Shiro worried that that was all he could do. He was losing blood, and fast.

He needed a hospital, but that wasn’t an option. Not with Dr. Honerva in the mix.

Getting Keith out of the car was difficult for Shiro, at the moment. He leaned on Shiro all the way up to the apartment and by the time that he had gotten near enough to a chair to collapse into it, he seemed utterly exhausted. 

“You didn’t have to do that.” Keith practically whispered. He began to unwind the jacket from his wound. 

“I don’t think you could’ve made it in on your own, Keith.” Shiro took a small first-aid kit from the cupboard--a thoughtful purchase made earlier into their roadtrip. The red plastic was cold against his fingers, which were slowly regaining feeling.

“I mean back there, with Pidge.”

He tensed. He did not want to talk about it.

“I had no choice.”

He opened the kit with a  _ click _ and picked out a tube of antiseptic. The last thing Keith needed right now was an infection, and who knew what kind of weird alien diseases those zombies were carrying? 

“You did. I didn’t need rescuing.”

Shiro gritted his teeth and fought to keep his cool. He moved to disinfect the wound, but found that, under the bandage, it had been far more gruesome than he had thought. He put down the antiseptic, and moved to get a washcloth.

Everything in him wanted to break down, but he kept his focus fixed on the path before him.  _ Clean, disinfect, bandage. Clean, disinfect, bandage.  _ He had to keep his mind on those three words and everything would be okay.

“I didn’t do anything. I didn’t rescue you.”

He took a washcloth from the sink and returned to the injured teen’s side.

“Pidge did.”

He brought the washcloth to the wound. Keith winced as Shiro cleaned away the flood, which seemed to still be flowing.

Shiro added another item to his list.  _ Stop the bleeding, clean, disinfect, bandage. _

__ “Exactly. Pidge did.”

He pressed down on the wound, applying a firm line of pressure along Keith’s slashed jawline.

“You ordered them to. I didn’t need to be rescued.”

Shiro drew his hands away.

“I didn’t. I didn’t do anything, Keith. I didn’t know where Pidge was. It was their choice.”

With shaking hands and anxiety rising, Shiro began to clean Keith’s blood with the washcloth.

“They wouldn’t have done that on their own. You- you should have stopped them!”

Shiro clenched his fist around the washcloth in his hand, sending crimson-tinted water down his arm.

“I can’t control everything, Keith!” Shiro felt himself break a bit at that point. “I’m sorry, but I am one person and I’m not much of a person anymore, for that matter! I’m not whatever kind of superhero you think I am!”

Keith did not react to his outburst with anything more than a tired side-eye. 

“Then why?” The teenager hissed with a slight crack in his tone. “Why would they let themself get killed for my sake?!”

“I-” Shiro set down the washcloth aside and picked up the antiseptic, squeezing some onto his fingertip. “I don’t know if it was for your sake, Keith.”

Keith winced from the slight pain as the antiseptic touched his wound.

“What do you mean?”

“We… we had a fight.”

The teenager fidgeted as Shiro applied the bitter antiseptic along his wound, but he fought not to show it. Through gritted teeth, he spoke:

“A fight?”

“Pidge had been tracking Honerva. They found where she’s probably set up base. They wanted to go there, to find Sam, but…”

“But you said no.”

“I said that it would be too dangerous.”

“You always say that!” Keith felt his anger rise but then realised, “They… they wanted to be captured, didn’t they?”

“I-” Shiro found himself getting choked up. “Probably.”

Shiro unrolled a length of bandaging, and began trying to wrap it around Keith’s head. It wasn’t easy, with how Keith kept moving his jaw.

“Well, now we don’t have a choice. We have to save them, both of the Holts.”

“No. It’s too dangerous.” Shiro’s eyes looked sullen at this point, feeling defeated.

“Are you going to keep saying that until every single one of us gets picked off like sheep?!”

With no reaction towards Keith, Shiro drew his hands away from him, now satisfied with the bandage. 

These kids didn’t understand. Everything was dangerous. They shouldn’t have even fought back, downtown. They should have run. The safest thing to do is stay in place, cowering. 

But… Keith was right. As far as they could tell, they were being actively pursued. The attack downtown was bait. They could keep cowering, sure, but at some point, their enemies would find their hiding place. They would be sitting ducks, fish in a barrel.

They had to fight back. There was no choice.

“No.” Shiro replied, this time his voice alight with a new determination. In his mind, the black lion puffed out its chest proudly. “No. We’re going to fight back.”

“W- really?”

“Come on.” Shiro gestured for Keith to follow. Though it was somewhat of a struggle, the boy made it to his feet. Shiro tried but Keith rejected any aid. 

They made their way down the linoleum hallway to Pidge and Lance’s room. Or, what used to be their room. Now, it belonged only to Lance.

Shiro knocked, and stood a few moments. There was no reply. 

He didn’t have time for Lance’s grudge against him so he pushed the door open, noting that the blue paladin was laying on his bed, hiding under the covers, for the most part. Shiro sighed, setting that problem aside , and sat down on the mattress that used to be Pidge’s bed. Keith kneeled down beside him. Beneath the covers, Lance stirred, but still seemed intent in being left alone.

Shiro placed Pidge’s laptop onto his lap and opened it.

“They had all their files on here, including the address.” He explained as the machine booted up.

It left him with a password entry screen. He stared at it blankly. 

“You know anything about computers?” He turned to Keith.

“No. Pidge was the one who was good at that.”

Shiro sighed, knowing that he was right, and turned back to the computer screen. The  _ enter password _ text floated in the center of the screen, taunting him about the information that was held on the other side.

“I guess I should just… guess?” Shiro muttered. He thought for a moment, before typing in ‘Holt.’

The text flashed red. 

_ Enter password _ .

‘Green.’ 

More red flashing.  _ Enter password _ .

‘Gunderson.” He tried, simply guessing randomly.

Again, the text flashed, but this time, it was colored a forboding black color. From the computer, a monotone voice chirped:

“Password incorrect. Commencing system data wipe.”

Shiro’s eyes widened, and he anxiously moved his hands to type once more, but there was no longer a text box. He was trying to type anything, or simply do something to get this laptop to stop what it was trying to do, but instead, the screen continued to display a white loading spiral. After a few moments, which were passed in silence, the screen turned black. 

Their ticket to the Holts was gone into thin air. They would have to start from scratch.


	5. Chapter Five

The Lions of Voltron did not exactly exist. As mortal beings constrained to their own realities would describe it, they lived not in any particular space, but in the absence of one, floating in a void that reality could not touch.

They had no physical forms-- no pocket of the universe could support such things. Still, the lions spoke in their own way, in a language indescribable in any earthly language.

“This is bad.” The green lion muttered, hanging their head. “This reality was not ready for the Galra.”

“It will be okay.” The black lion replied, flicking its tail. “That’s why we’re here.” The two lions continued their conversation. 

“But we are only as strong as our vessels, Black.”

“I know.”

“We can always find new vessels, but…”

“You’re attached.”

“Too attached.”

“Maybe. Maybe I am, too. I do not want to wish to abandon them.”

“None of the others do, either.”

“Even Red?”

“Red understands, even if on a purely logical basis. Our presence is already tearing apart their reality. By switching vessels, we risk worsening the rift.” 

“Yes.” The black lion dipped its head. “Though maybe it would be worth it for you to abandon your vessel.”

“I do not know if I can. They are the human species’ definition of a child. I cannot abandon them.”

“You have interacted with too many mortals, Green.”

“Perhaps.”

The black lion purred with amusement. “How is your vessel, then?”

“Will you tell me of your own vessel, if I tell you the story of mine?”

“Of course.”

  
  


Shiro collapsed onto his bed.

He felt like his limbs could hardly carry him and in his mind, he sensed that even the black lion itself was tired. He considered himself more than lucky to not have been wounded, but the effort of staying alive had sapped all his energy from him. 

He wished he could say the same for the rest of his team..

Dr. Honerva had used one of her zombies to lure a doctor to an abandoned part of their hospital, for reasons Shiro had no clue as to. Luckily for them, the scent of Galra had alerted the lions of the event. In the end, the doctor has gotten out alive, but not unharmed. Dr. Honerva had escaped, and left Shiro’s team injured, being no closer to recovering their lost member.

Even though he clearly lived in a tiny apartment with three other people, every lost battle only made him feel more and more like he was completely alone in the world. 

It had been a week. Seven days since he had let Pidge be taken.. 

In his mind, the black lion growled until he conceded and turned his focus to it. It had only been a few weeks, but the sensation of speaking with the odd creature that lived in his mind had come to feel fairly natural. It was like speaking with his own thoughts, in a way.

The lion seemed weathered in its own right. Still, with a distinct aura of determination, Shiro felt it lower it's head. Though not directly, Shiro could sense the shadow of another lion as it appeared in his mind. 

The green lion.

Sympathetically, the shadow of a lion purred, curling its tail tip. Though it spoke no words, as it had no throat to so in this state, Shiro understood the message clearly.

Pidge was okay. At least for now.

* * *

“I really wish you didn’t fuss so much.” Dr. Honerva muttered as she moved around the room. “Your father is a man of science, and I can only assume he passed such passions onto his kin. You should be happy to be participating in such advancements, Holt.”

“Actually, my father taught me not to be a lab rat for a crazy woman. He would always tell me that. Never stopped talking about it, really. Every night, before bed: Don’t trust complete manics, Pidge.” Pidge bit back, though their fiery tone was tinged with an undertone of worry. 

They were pretty sure that they had a good excuse for that, though. It was difficult to not be afraid when one was strapped to a table. They wished with all the strength they could muster to choke the life out of that horrible woman, but their body was firmly held by their bindings. The purple-tinted technology of extraterrestrial origin, was fastened firmly around their wrists, neck, and forehead. 

“You have his snark, too.” Honerva turned away for a moment. “Great.” She groaned. “Listen to me, Holt. You are an unprecedented discovery in the field of extraterrestrial studies. You are a human with alien abilities-- a hybrid, to put it in layman's terms.”

“Oh, I’ve heard this one!” A smirk appeared on Pidges face, trying to hide their worry with her smart-aleck remarks. “When a daddy alien and a mommy human love each other very much-”

“Will you shut up!” Dr. Honerva growled. Pidge could hear her footsteps as she moved nearer, but with their head restrained, they were unable to see what the woman was actually doing-- like some kind of stupid recreation of the alegory of the cave. 

Still, Pidge’s antics stopped comforting them as soon as they heard the doctor place something down on a table nearby. The floodgates of terror broke, and the green paladin began to thrash against the purple glowing shackles that kept them bound. Despite, their efforts were no use.

They could only imagine what Dr. Honerva had placed down. Surgical tools? Some kind of experimental drug? They should have been able to simply turn their head and find out, but they couldn’t! They were a cornered animal, blinded and unable to see what method of execution awaited them in their final moments.

When Dr. Honerva spoke again, Pidge was startled to such a point that they jerked upwards, which resulted only in them slamming the back of their head against the table when their restraints inevitably stopped them from sitting up.

“You are a technopath, if I remember correctly.” Dr. Honerva spoke with a tone of interest. “You have the power to assert control over technology.” She paused for a moment. “There is… something I want to test.”

That couldn’t be good.

“I have here, just about three feet to your left, a harddrive. I want you to attempt to access it.”

Pidge’s mounting terror left no room for the sass they usually would have responded to such a request with. They followed the order in no uncertain terms-- extending the reach of their mind’s electrical signals until they connected with the nearby object. Control was really an incorrect term to describe the process. It was less that Pidge controlled technology, as much as they interfaced with it, making it yet another part of their body.

“How much time do you need?” Dr. Honerva requested.

“It only takes a few seconds. It’s done .” Pidge replied, hating the lack of venom in their own shaking voice.

“Good kid.” Dr. Honerva smiled. “There is only one file on the harddrive. What is it?”

“An English to French dictionary.”

“Good.” Dr. Honerva moved away again, to the other side of the room. “Health?”

“What?”

“What is the French word for health?”

“Santé.”

“Country?”

“Pays.”

“Thermal imaging camera?”

“Caméra thermique.”

Though Pidge could not see it, they could practically sense the grin that stretched across Honerva’s face. The thought of it made bile rise in their throat.

“Do you understand what you are?” The question sounded rude in nature, but Honerva’s tone implied that it was a compliment. “Your brain, Holt, it has an entirely different way of storing information than that of average humans. If this is right… then your synapses must be serving as bytes, allowing a sort of Random Access Memory independant of your short term memory! Do you understand how  _ amazing _ you are?”

Pidge stared up at the sickeningly white ceiling about. They didn’t feel  _ amazing _ by any means. They felt like a white rat with blue veins.

Dr. Honerva murmured something, tone disappointed and suddenly somber in tone. She moved closer to Pidge, until she was right behind them. The restrained paladin yelped as they felt a hand on their head. Instead of harming them, however, Honerva began carding her fingers through Pidge’s hair, in a way that was disgustingly motherly.

“You are different, Holt. You’re like your father, in that way. You may not come around as easily, but I promise you, you will join my flock. Everyone does.” Dr. Honerva smiled as she spoke, causing Pidges anger to rise.

“Fuck you.” Is all they could say. 

  
  


“So… You know this guy?” Keith questioned.

Shiro nodded, though he wasn’t sure if  _ know _ should be in the past tense or not. Before him was sat Dr. Ulaz, a man he had long considered to be a mentor. The way the man’s eyes reflected light unnerved him-- they seemed almost to be made of glass, though, surely, they were not.

Dr. Ulaz growled in an almost wild manner as he strained against the bonds keeping him held to a wooden dining chair. He was only held down by rope, but so far, it seemed to be enough.

Almost desperately, Shiro searched the man’s eyes for any sign of recognition, but none could be found. It had been a mere month since the conference, but any semblance of Ulaz seemed to be gone, now, or at least very deeply buried.

Hunk, who was standing several feet back from the restrained man, questioned: “So… what are we going to do? With this man? Zombie? Thing…?”

“The goal is to see if we can get him out of this trance.” Keith explained, arms crossed over his chest. Out of the whole group, he hated this idea the most. “If that doesn’t work, we let him go, let him lead us back to Honerva’s base.”

“Like a homing pigeon?”

“Uh… I guess so? Yeah. Like a homing pigeon.One that will lead us right to Pidge.”

* * *

Pidge knew that they shouldn't have eaten the food they were given that morning.

They knew that they should have panicked, when their limbs began moving as if she was dragging them through mud.

They should have fought back when Dr. Honerva’s zombies dragged them away from their cell.

They should have held their breath when the oxygen mask was forced over their mouth.

They should have. They knew that. Right? They had already forgotten what their mind had been occupied with just a moment ago. They thought that they could return to their train of thought, but it was up on the shore.As it stood, they were floating at the bottom of the sea, weighed down by their limbs, which weighed about as much as lead, right about now.

When Dr. Honerva entered the operating theater, her patient did not struggle. They only murmured something about the ocean, or something like that.

Pidge was sure that they saw someone approach, but they did not busy themself with it. Their mind was somewhere else… floating… Since when had the world become so bright? Did it matter? Probably not. They closed their eyes. Much better.

Dr. Honerva smiled as she approached her patient, who seemed to be on the verge of unconsciousness. She ran her fingers through the Holt’s hair in an attempt to wake them up, but it seemed to do little. Too much sedative, perhaps.

“Holt.” She spoke, loud enough to be heard, but not loud enough to frighten the patient. “I need you to stay awake for this, Holt.”

“Mm… Scared.” Pidge muttered.

“There’s no reason for that.” Dr. Honerva smiled. “You won’t feel a thing. You’ll be such a nice sheep, Holt. Very soon.”

Pidge was not sure what the woman was saying, and did not respond. Somewhere, Pidge sensed a scalpel slid through the flesh on the back of their neck, but fell unconscious before they could really feel it.

* * *

Shiro couldn’t help wince as rough branches and twigs scraped against his spine. The lions had assured them that there was room for a human, here--as while they could not see beyond their paladin’s own sight line, they were far more analytical than them-- but he was beginning to seriously question whether or not the lions had a good idea of what a human could and could not fit through.

By some miracle, however, he emerged into a larger clearing, where he could at least lift his head. Keith emerged a moment behind him from the tangled web of underbrush. Both of them appeared to be considerably scratched up by brambles, but they would surely not be seen back here. The forest was too dense and deep. It was the perfect hiding place, except for all the thorns.

“So, it’s here?” Keith questioned as he picked leaves from his hair. 

Shiro nodded. “This forest borders the last building we tracked Ulaz down to. It must be.”

“So, this is where Pidge is?”

“I really hope so, Keith. But I don’t know.” Shiro sighed. “That’s what we’re here to find out. There’s no way they can see us, over here. We go in, and get out if things get too hot.”

“And we get Pidge.” Keith firmly stated.

“Yeah.” Shiro took a deep breath. ”And we get Pidge.”

Since Shiro had no idea where he was going, he let his lion guide him in the direction of the buildings. He scratched an opening in the web of brambles that stood between him and the building where his lost child was likely being held.

“Go.” 

The direct order was given as a whisper, but it was well heard and well abided by. Together, the two men scrambled out of their wooded hiding place, towards the building.

Two months. They had been searching for two months.

They found an empty warehouse and met with nothingness. The only sign of the green paladin was a splatter of blood in a makeshift operating theater.

* * *

Pidge’s cell was cold.

Coming to that conclusion was a difficult process. The connection between their mind and their body had grown weak-- so that a sensation such as “cold” was slow to be transmitted. When the feeling had arrived in the right brain, it struggled to find its way to the other hemisphere-- the hemisphere that would be capable of defining the sensation as “cold.”

The parts of their mind were still there, but with every trip to the operating room, it seemed that more of their mind’s pathways were being taken away. Redirected. Redirected into things that were not Pidge. Not entirely, at least. 

They didn’t understand what Dr. Honerva was doing to them. Something with mental interfacing… synapse rebuilding...

How long until their mind could no longer communicate with their body? How long before their mind could no longer communicate with itself?

The whole situation had barely reminded them of the Old Man’s Boat Paradox. It was a simple paradox, though dredging it from their memory was a monumental task, with their current limitations.

It was a simple paradox, overall. It stated that a boat is built, created entirely out of new parts. As time goes on, parts break, boards weather, masts are splintered. Thus, over time, parts of the boats are replaced. A new steering wheel here, a new rudder there. Over the course of many years, every last part of the boat is replaced. Is it still the same boat that it was at the beginning? If not, then when did it become a different boat? Was it when the first part was replaced? Or the last?

There was no true answer to that paradox, they suppose. Pidge felt to be wrapped up in their own paradox.

How much could Honerva do to them, before they stopped being a Pidge at all?

Or, had there stopped being one, on the day of the first surgery?

* * *

Shiro could hardly see so much as a foot in front of his own face, but it didn’t matter. The overwhelming stench of Galra drove the black lion forward, with him practically in tow. Beneath his feet, stagnant water splashed, but its smell hardly distracted from that of the enemy.

He still wasn’t sure as to exactly what was going on. The lions had practically shaken their paladins awake, only to insist on them needing to get to an abandoned subway tunnel, as quickly as possible. Apparently, the stench was so strong that they could sense it rather than smell it, considering how far the subway is from their home..

So, here Shiro was, sprinting through a darkened subterranean tunnel with his teammates’ footsteps pounding behind him. 

With a panicked cry, the lions ordered them to stop, leading to the paladins nearly colliding with each other as they struggled to halt their momentum. Somehow, they managed it, without anyone falling over.

Shiro noted that it reeked of Galra as the black lion transmitted its senses to him. The source was mere yards away, on the other side of the track. Though he could not see it, the black lion’s hypothetical nose gave him all the information he needed. 

The smell was stronger than any they had encountered before. Stronger than that of Dr. Honerva herself, or any of the zombies. Whatever this being was, it had not been merely touched by the Galra. It was one of them.

He listened intently to the plodding sound of footsteps on the other side of the tracks. It must have heard them, but, then again, it did not seem to react if it had.

So, this was it. Shiro thought as he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. This was one of the creatures that was responsible for… whatever Honerva was doing. This was one of the creatures who had caused the Holts to come to harm. He hardly thought through his next order. It simply felt right-- as if there was no other option. He felt as if he had awakend. 

“Don’t let them get away! Attack!”

It was clear that the other paladins had simply been waiting for the order, as they all tore after the creature. The darkened tunnel was only briefly lit by flashes of flame from Keith’s hands, and whirring purple energy leaping from Shiro’s arm. 

They had no need of sight. Their lions guided them--as they had no concept of light nor darkness.

The fight was chaotic, and at no point during it was Shiro entirely sure as to where he was. Occasionally, he would land a blow. Occasionally, he would be hit. In that moment, he and his lion seemed to share the body. He only controlled half of his own movements, but he did not mind. The black lion could clearly fight better than he.

The chaos was only broken by a cry, though he was not sure from which paladin it originated.

“Get back here, you son of a bitch!”

Driven more by the instincts of his lion than anything, Shiro pursued the now rapidly parting smell of Galra. However, it was not much use. The Galra was a species from another reality, and what were they? Humans.

The Galra got away, and the paladins were left in the abandoned station, gasping for breath. 

Shiro had thought it to be their big break. Their chance to find Honerva. Their  _ chance _ to find Sam and Pidge. That was… assuming that the Holts had survived, after four months.

* * *

Pidge’s cell was cold. Their body processed this, but the signal went nowhere.

* * *

The green lion sat on the counter, tail wrapped around itself as the paladins stared. It was an eldritch creature, with its true nature incomprehensible to any being bound to reality. Now, however, it looked more like a frightened kitten.

It bowed its head in sympathy.

“I am sorry.”

It spoke no more words than that, but its message was clear. The lions had explained it many times, as they attempted to help the paladins make sense of their situations back in the storage room, when they had first met the lions.

The lions can only take their physical forms when they are not inhabiting a vessel. A lion can not inhabit a vessel who is dead.

_ Death is the only thing that can drive us apart. _ The black lion had stated its message in feelings, rather than words.  _ We will not abandon you under other circumstances. _

“So, Pidge is…” Lance quietly started, too horrified to finish his sentence.

“No. Not dead. Not physically, anyways. It’s… something different.” The green lion told them. 


	6. Chapter Six

“The Green Lion returning to us certainly wasn’t” he paused to look down for a moment, in thought.. “planned upon.” Once again he looked up at the paladins gathered around the dining table.. “But we can’t pass up the opportunity that this provides us.” Shiro began.

Hunk’s chair creaked as he shifted back and forth nervously, but other than this, the room listened silently to the team leader. The green lion’s projection sat on one end of the table, flicking its plumed tail, but this made no noise, as the projection had no hold on reality or the objects within it.

“Yes.” The lion bowed its head. “As I am not contained within a vessel, I am now able to temporarily take over the perceptions of other beings within this reality, thus allowing me to view locations your species would be unable to enter. Through this, I have found that this piece of your reality is  _ gross _ .” The Green Lion stuck out their tongue. “Everything smells like Galrabut, I have been able to find a few specific locations where Galra presence is particularly strong.I can not guarantee anything, but your reality’s rules of probability dictate that one of these locations is also the location of my former paladin.”

“What exactly do you mean by, not accessible by our species?” Lance questioned.

“I mean, well, it is not that you cannot access these locations. I believe they are commonly referred to as being abandoned. This made finding beings in these locations very difficult, but your world has an abundance of microorganisms in every corner. Small animals were in these locations often, as well. I used their perceptions during my search.”

“Wait, wait.” Hunk started. “If there were no people in these places, then there’s no way Pidge is there, right?”

“There were people. I was unable to tell who these people were, but they were… corrupted, I suppose. Too touched by the Galra for me to do anything.”

“So, when you said you couldn’t use Pidge as a vessel anymore…” Shiro anxiously asked , but the green lion answered before he could finish.

“Yes. Galra and lions… we don’t mix.”

“Okay.” Shiro nodded. “Then, could you lead us to these locations? And, how many are there?”

“Six. Six nearby with amiable living conditions for humans. And, yes, I could bring you to them.”

“Are they safe?”

“They contain the necessary atmospheric conditions for harboring life. Other than that, I have no idea.”

Shiro looked at the expressions of the others sitting around the dining table. There was not a look of hesitation in sight.

“Lead the way, Green.”

* * *

As it turned out, taking directions from some kind of space cat that existed beyond the traditional definition of existence wasn’t the easiest thing to do. From their time on Earth, the lions had only just started developing a solid understanding of directions, and the concepts of up and down. Having barely grasped those things, they had significant difficulties understanding what they had dubbed ‘arbitrary rules as to how human-piloted vehicles should interact with one another,’ or, as humans knew them, ‘traffic laws.’ 

Thus far, the green lion had led them on a twisting and turning route made up of hairpin turns and generally getting lost. This had brought them to two Galra-marked locations, one of which had been the building Shiro and Keith had already found to be empty, while the other seemed to simply be a patch of grass. 

Shiro was rapidly coming to believe that this was little more than a wild goose chase. Despite this, the green lion seemed confident.

And Shiro wasn’t about to pass up the advice of a being who was born before the creation of time itself, especially not when it meant finding his kid.

No matter what state Pidge was in, Shiro would find them. Even if it meant…

_ Nevermind that. He dismissed the thought. _

“Okay, so, go down.” The green lion commanded. It was stretched out over the dashboard, with its paws occasionally phasing in and out of the vehicle’s controls.

“ _ Down _ ?” Shiro questioned, his face twisted in frustration and his knuckles white against the wheel.

“Down. Below. Lower. Underground. What part of this are you confused about?”

“You see the thing the car is driving on, right now? That’s called asphalt. And it stops us from going  _ down _ .”

The green lion blinked. 

“I hate this reality.” Green also sighed with slight frustration. ‘Just, this left. Take this left!”

They were already practically in the intersection, but Shiro obliged, shoving through the swamp of traffic with the confidence of a Border Collie among a flock of sheep. He was glad to realize that the lion was leading him towards the edge of the city, though they were already far from the heart of the city, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to get much of anywhere at all.

The Green Lion continued to guide them out of the city, though no matter how far they drove, they were still firmly in a concrete jungle. 

“There! There! Right!”

Shiro slammed on the brakes and threw the vehicle into a sharp right turn that he probably should not have taken. The lion shrunk down against the dashboard, flicking its tail wildly, which Shiro interpreted as them approaching their destination.

A few more turns led them into a sort of industrial park, where it seemed no one had been in quite some time. Most of the buildings were sprawling, taking up floor space rather than towering upwards, like most buildings in the city. The Green Lion indicated him to park on a street corner.

“There.” The lion announced, pointing out the window at one of nearby nondescript concrete structures. “That one.”

“Okay. Team, let’s go.” Shiro commanded, clambering from the vehicle. He wasn’t exactly hopeful, after their last two attempts had led them to dead ends. The rest of the team piled out of their vehicle. 

The green lion led the way but they were considerably more difficult to see in the sunlight, as their form didn’t really exist in the first place. 

The building that supposedly contained Galra presence didn’t look like much of anything, though Shiro had no idea what he was actually expecting. It was a massive structure, identified in worn letters that he couldn’t quite make out, which were positioned above a beige-tinted garage door.

“I believe a Galra ship crash landed here.” The Green Lion explained. 

“Where?” Shiro questioned, seeing no ship in sight.

“Here. In this building.”

“It doesn’t look very… crashed into.”

“The ship isn’t in the building. It’s under... underground. I think. So if there’s Galra activity anywhere, it’d be below there.”

Shiro didn’t attempt to question how a ship could crash  _ through _ something, rather than into it. This reality bending nonsense made his brain hurt. He bit down his frustration with a deep breath.

He moved forward, gripping the bottom of the garage door, and forcing it upwards. It whined with the sheer force being exerted onto it, but it opened none-the-less.

Beyond, the building was an expanse of nothingness, which the daylight outside seemed incapable of penetrating, even once the door was opened. The whole structure seemed either unfinished or simply very open. There were no walls in sight, just as there was nothing else in sight. It seemed that the building had been built and quickly abandoned-- a facade of an inhabited space.

“You see what I mean?” The Green Lion spoke, as if something significant had just been revealed. Something more significant than a massive, empty room.

Shiro shook his head, and the lion grumbled, before bounding forth. The shadow of the room made it nearly impossible to follow, but the team did their best to follow its lead.

“Here.” The lion pointed at a seemingly arbitrary piece of flooring. “Down here. Come on!”

With that, it took a step forward, and seemed to simply disappear, as if it had fallen through the solid flooring. Shiro gulped, but wasn’t about to turn back, now. He stepped forward, and felt his heart skip as the seemingly solid floor turned out to be nothing but a facade for thin air. He didn’t fall, exactly, but when he opened his eyes, he was certainly in a different place than he had been a moment ago. 

The world was horribly, horribly dark around them.

It reminded Shiro of a cave-- a place marked not only by its absence of light in the current moment, but also the fact that light had never been there at all. He was standing on uneven ground, which seemed to curve downwards.

“Stay as close to me as possible.” Shiro swallowed down any fear he felt, ensuring it would not seep into his voice. He looked back for a moment. “Do not get lost. No matter what, stay together.”

His teammates nodded with the same slight hesitation in their expressions from whatever they are about to enter. Shiro looked ahead once again to lead behind the Green Lion.

“Green, lead the way. Go slow.”

He looked for a moment, attempting to find them, assuming they had run off. He was quickly proved wrong as the creature appeared from around a corner.

It had never before appeared so clearly.

Shiro was so used to the lions looking like unfinished animations. Instead, the green lion now appeared as a solid creature, so much so that he believed if he tried to touch it, his hand would not go straight through. 

“This way.” The green lion spoke, and, unlike usual, its mouth seemed to actually move in time with its words. “And watch your step, this isn’t the kind of architecture that you’re used to.”

Shiro had little idea what that was supposed to mean, but went with it regardless. The Green Lion set off, and he stayed mere inches behind the end of its tail. He would have liked to stay at its side, but he was quite sure that this tunnel was too narrow to allow such a thing, even though he couldn’t actually see the walls.

In a single-file line of paranoia, they followed the lion’s lead. Wherever they were--the Galra ship, he supposed-- was made up of a series of twisting tunnels. They flowed in all directions, much like a river, with seemingly nonsensical twists and turns. The only constant was that they always seemed to be moving deeper. Shiro could feel oxygen growing thinner in his lungs.

Ahead, he swore he saw a light.

He rubbed his eyes, certain that it was merely wishful thinking, but it was not. There was a light ahead. As they approached it, he was able to make out that it was somehow embedded into the wall in a thin, purple line. 

“Galra don’t need light to see.” The Green Lion hissed, stopping in its tracks. 

Shiro immediately began to feel very, very claustrophobic.

“There’s something else down here.” The lion’s tail stilled as it lowered itself to the ground. 

“What?!” Lance’s panicked cry came from behind Shiro, practically making him jump out of his skin.

“Wait, Lance, shut your mouth for one second.” Keith shushed, covering Lances mouth. “Did anyone else hear that?” The four Paladins then proceeded to try and look around the darkness they were engulfed within. 

“Maybe… Hopefully, it was nothing.” Hunk spoke with a very shaky tone, trying to make himself feel better about his current terrified state. 

The tunnel grew deafeningly quiet. In the distance, something sounded as if it scurried away.

“Green, what was that?” Shiro quickly asked, fear climbing within his tone. He could feel the walls pressing in on his shoulders, now. There was no room to move left or right, only forwards or backwards, and they must’ve been miles below the surface, by now. 

“I don’t know. There was never anything living down here, when I came here. Nothing bigger than an amoeba.” 

Whatever this thing was, it most certainly knew this territory better than they did. By the time they had started to flee, they would have already been caught.

“Shiro. What do we do?” Keith questioned. Even the bull-headed Red Paladin’s tone shook.

“Keep moving forward.” It was the only thing they could do. “If anyone hears  _ anything _ , I want to hear about it. If anything happens, if you feel anything,  _ scream _ .” His tone got serious at the thought of them getting caught. “Got that?”

The three Paladins muttered in nervous agreement.

With a more hesitant gait, the Green Lion again began to move. The purple lights along the walls, which were hung on either side like fairy lights, provided them with at least some semblance of the tunnel ahead of them.

They had only been walking for a few minutes when the illumination blinked out. 

“Shiro.” Hunk whispered. “I heard something.”

“When?”

“Just n-”

The Yellow Paladin was cut off by a blood curdling screech-- one clearly coming from Lance. Something pushed Shiro forwards, and he was barely able to stay upright. 

“There’s something back there.” Lance’s voice shook in a way that seemed nearly cartoonish. “I saw it. I saw it. I saw it. It was behind us and it  _ looked at me _ .”

In that moment, the lights flicked back on, illuminating Lance, who had his arms wrapped around Hunk like his life depended on it.

“Okay, okay.” Shiro moved his hands in a comforting gesture, though no one could really see it. “Nobody panic.”

“Too late.  _ Way  _ too late.” Hunk protested, hugging Lance back.

“Nobody panic  _ more _ . Green, where is this place you’re leading us to? How far is it?”

“Only about half a mile.”

“Okay. We’re going to keep going. We don’t have a choice. Everyone, keep close, hold hands, I don’t care. Whatever you do, we just need to stay together. We  _ cannot _ get seperated.”

Lance and Hunk were too terrified to reply. Keith was petrified himself from everything happening, but he at least nodded at Shiro's orders.

With shaking legs, the Green Lion began its march once more, leading the now trembling procession even deeper into the ship’s underbelly.

Up to this point, the walls had been made of some unidentifiable rubbery substance, which, at times, seemed to breathe. Gradually, however, they seemed to be turning into something more metallic, though the metal was certainly not one that came from Earth. At some point, the organic rubbery material was taken over completely by its industrial counterpart.

“Almost, almost.” The green lion’s gait turned to a trot as the Paladins pace got faster.

Behind the team, far closer than it had been before, something seemed to breathe. It didn't sound human.

“Run! Run!” Shiro frantically cried out. The Green Lion threw itself into a nosedive of a gallop, with the team following at a similar speed. On either side of them, the purple lights flickered on and off.

Shiro couldn’t help but feel there was one too many sets of footsteps.

Through the mercy of some god, a doorway appeared before them, beyond which a room opened up. The team toppled through the doorway, with the Green Lion scrambling to its paws and slamming the door closed behind them.

Shiro’s head spun, as he had surely slammed it onto the floor when he had fallen, but regardless, he struggled to his feet. The other paladins all looked as though they had seen a ghost, especially Lance, who was visibly trembling like a leaf.

“What the  _ hell _ ?” Keith spoke, the first one to do so once they had all caught their breath.

“It wasn’t a Galra.” The green lion replied, as if it was giving any sort of explanation. “Whatever that was, it wasn’t a Galra. It was marked by them, but it wasn’t one.”

“Then what was it?” Shiro asked.

“No clue.”

“Something dangerous?”

“I know just as much as you. All I know is that this area, this room, reeks of Galra.” It nervously kneaded the ground with its paws. “Seriously, how do you stand it?”

Shiro didn’t answer, instead turning his attention to the rest of the room. It wasn’t large, not by any means, but it was at least big enough to fit all of them. The walls were made of that same metal, and from them stuck a whole host of mechanical objects, none of which Shiro could come close to understanding the purpose of.

The only thing he somehow recognized sent a sickening chill through his spine: An operating table. It looked somewhat alien, but its purpose was clear.

The blood on the walls didn’t help. Something resembling a refrigerator was affixed to one wall, and Shiro had absolutely no desire to look and see what was inside.

“It’s getting closer.” The Green Lion hissed. They were still on their hind legs, pressing their front paws against the door to keep it closed. “The scent.” 

“We’re trapped.” Hunk pointed out. “Oh god, we’re trapped. We’re stuck with some kind of monster and-”

“No.” Shiro shook his head. “We aren’t trapped. We’re only trapped if we stay here.”

“You aren’t seriously suggesting that we-” Keith started.

“I didn’t say anything about  _ us  _ doing anything. I’m going out there. I’ll see what that thing is, and if it comes to blows, then it comes to blows.” 

“What?! That’s an even worse idea!” Lance protested, still visibly shaken.

“We’re going to have to go up there eventually.” Shiro countered. “We’re not dying down here. The tunnel is too small for us all to move effectively. If I go alone, I can at least turn around if things get too hot. If we all go out at once,  _ then _ we’re trapped.”

“You can’t do that!” Keith hissed. “Let me go. I can scare it off.”

“We have no idea if that thing can even be hurt by flames. Not to mention we don’t know if anything down here is flammable. It’s too much of a risk. I have to be the one to go.”

“No!” He had no idea which paladin’s voice it was. Perhaps it was all three.

“Green, move.” Shiro made his way to the door, setting all the protesting aside.

“I’m not letting you get hurt.” The Green Lion shook its head. “No way.”

“Do you trust Black?”

“With all my life.”

“Then trust me.” He quickly stated. “I won’t be going out there alone. He’ll be with me.”

The Green Lion considered that for a moment, plumed tail lashing, before they gave in. They slowly slid down the door and moved away from it.

Shiro’s arm began glowing a warm purple as it shifted into the form of a blade. 

He pushed open the door.

He expected to be afraid as he stepped to the other side, but his body seemed to be out of stock of adrenaline and paranoid thoughts. Pushing the door closed behind himself, he was somewhat surprised with the steady gait he walked with as he returned to the tunnels.

The lights were out once more, but the illumination from his arm provided him at least some vision. He kept going, walking forward rather aimlessly following. With the endless branching paths that this ship contained, he had no chance of finding the mysterious figure if he tried to actively look for it.

He would let it find him.

Every few steps he took, he gently knocked on the wall next to him, prompting the metal to let out a quiet, rippling hum. He knew he was likely inviting his own death, but he still didn’t find himself feeling afraid.

Somewhere nearby, the smell of Galra shifted, as the Black Lion informed him. It was moving closer.

Shiro stood still.

Terrified and paranoid thoughts appeared in his mind, once again, but he promptly dismissed them.

He was Shiro, protector of the world, vessel of the Black Lion, Black Paladin, and more importantly, a leader. The leader of the Paladins. Their father.

The smell grew closer. At the end of the hallway, a silhouette appeared.

Shiro knocked on the wall again to taunt whatever was before him.

The noise seemed to startle the creature instead, as it darted around a corner. He took a note of that, that noise seemed to scare away the figure rather than attract it. He let his hands rest by his sides, and simply waited.

Something slammed into him from behind.

The force sent him falling to the floor. He and his attacker rolled over each other a few times, with his opponent ending up on top. With ease, Shiro kicked out, sending the figure flying. It was thrown against the low ceiling, though it did not cry out.

Before it had time to get up, Shiro was on it, holding it down with a strength that few creatures could resist, and, clearly, this was not one of those creatures. 

He expected some kind of noise. Maybe a hiss, or a growl, or some swearing in an alien language. But the creature was completely silent.

Shiro dared to move one hand off of the figure, in order to use his arm as a sort of flashlight. Below him, his captive writhed.

He held his arm up to their face.

  
  


From the room in which they hid, the Paladins heard an anguished cry. Immediately, Keith was on his feet; an action soon followed by Hunk and Lance.

“Don’t.” The Green Lion warned. “He can handle himself.”

“He’s in  _ danger _ !” Keith protested, practically spitting in rage. He ran to the door, and attempted to wrench it open, but the green lion held fast.

“He’s fine!”

“Are you deaf?!” Keith retorted.

“He’s-”

Something knocked on the door.

“I’m alright.” Shiro’s voice came, albeit muffled. The Green Lion released its hold on the door, causing Keith to nearly fall backwards with how hard he had been trying to force it open. The two of them moved back, giving Shiro room. Hunk and Lance joined them.

There was a figure in Shiro’s arms, squirming and struggling, but gaining no ground. He kneeled on the floor, setting down his captive. They assumed a crouched position on the floor, curling in on themself, but ready to leap forth at the same time.

Shiro raised his arm, allowing the purple light from it to show onto the figure.

At first glance, the kid was unrecognizable. Purple lights, similar to the ones on the walls outside, webbed over their head, seeming to throb like external veins. Much of their face had been replaced by the same odd metal that the ship was made up of, and, from the back of their neck, some odd sort of mechanical apparatus stuck.

But Pidge’s eyes were still as they once had been--those beautiful brown eyes that had come directly from their father’s bloodline.

Those eyes darted around at the Paladins. There was no sign of recognition.

But there was no doubt in the minds of a single one in that room-- this was Pidge, no matter what had been done to them. No matter how Dr. Honerva had twisted their mind.

This was Shiro’s child, and he was ready to do whatever it took to get them back.


End file.
